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Comment by jbmorgado | Hacker News Reader

From the article: "The ruling in favor of Google, now part of Alphabet Inc., followed a court adviser's recommendation that Google did not have a "permanent establishment" or sufficient taxable presence to justify the bill."

Google makes billions worth of business in the EU and yet they deem that Google doesn't have "sufficient taxable presence to justify the bill".

I would like to know what are the exact terms that specify what is a "sufficient taxable presence to justify the bill", since nothing seems to fit the description.

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> Google makes billions worth of business in the EU and yet they deem that Google doesn't have "sufficient taxable presence to justify the bill".

From Ireland. Where it pays (some) tax.

> I would like to know what are the exact terms that specify what is a "sufficient taxable presence to justify the bill", since nothing seems to fit the description.

Single market means that a company in Ireland can sell to anyone in the EU, and pay Irish taxes[0]. Its one of the basic tenants of the single market.

0 - This is changing with newer VAT rules, which mean that you pay the VAT of the country you sell the goods / services in, but they were not in effect during the period that this lawsuit covers

Presence is traditionally established by buildings, equipment, local employees, and other very physical and visible indications. Tax law is still trying to cope with international outsourcing, let alone mostly virtual operations like e-commerce. It's one reason for the shift to consumption taxes.

From the article: "The Paris administrative court ruled that Google Ireland Limited was not subject to corporate and value-added taxes for the period 2005-2010". Presumably, GIL has no presence in France and Google France is a separate entity.

> Google makes billions worth of business in the EU and yet they deem that Google doesn't have "sufficient taxable presence to justify the bill".

Their taxable presence is in the EU, just not in France.

You can't have the "common market" and have one tax jurisdiction per member state served, that is outrageous.

Just like it's outrageous to have state and local taxes in the US, am I right?

State and local taxes screw over businesses selling those goods and services. Consumers and businesses buy elsewhere.

Just ask the IRS, and this is just income taxes. Businesses have a lot more mobility. Florida gains an extra $10,000 in annual gross income every 40 seconds on average from people moving from New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. California loses (net) about $4,000 AGI every 40 seconds to Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Oregon, and Washington and others. Florida gained, through this alone, an additional ~140 Billion dollars in Annual Gross Income between 1992 and 2015 from tax migration.

http://www.howmoneywalks.com/irs-tax-migration/

> State and local taxes screw over businesses

I don't agree. That taxes are used to pay for the education of their employees and the owners themselves, that taxes pay for the roads that move that goods, that taxes pay for the police force that ensures safety and for the judges that assure that contracts are fulfilled.

How are going that business to work without all that? Are really taxes "screwing" business?

Perhaps he meant that state and local taxes can result in consumers buying from out-of-area suppliers to dodge those taxes, like many "mail-order" operations have always been... including, until a few years ago, Amazon.

This may even still be the case. In CA, anyway, Amazon and the FTB made a deal a few years ago such that Amazon generally collects CA sales tax on sales to CA addresses.

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