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Comment by Iv | Hacker News Reader

This is one of the main criticism about how the EU was made: freedom for funds goods and (mostly) workers to move around in the EU zone, without tariffs or constraints but no fiscal harmonization has been done.

Therefore countries with low taxes (Ireland but also Luxembourg) attract a disproportionate amount of big companies HQ. Ikea, for instance, is officially declared in Luxembourg.

Why so many people in EU rejoice about the Brexit is because UK has been one of the main force opposing fiscal harmonization (apparently London is a bit of a tax haven for financial service companies) so hopefully this kind of efforts can go forward.

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I don't know where you got that so many people in the EU rejoice at the defection of the UK. It is a sad state of affair that gets the rest if the EU sad and angry. I don't see what there is to rejoice about, although I'm sure that some will see it as a benefit in some narrow way.

Rejoice is indeed a bit strong, but definitely at least Schadenfreude for the foot-bullet aimed at their trust & reputation centered industries.

In your opinion. Given the fascistic bullying of sovereign nations Hungary and Poland by Brussels for merely defending their citizens' interests, perhaps the writing is on the wall.

That's the general sentiment in France. Too often UK has used their veto to prevent some EU-wide change or to block any initiative that was not about purely trade. Most of the people who follow EU politics think that Brexit is an economical loss but a political gain.

Here is for example an opinion piece by Michel Rocard, a former French PM (left-wing guy, really not a nationalist), before the Brexit: https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/27e68h/what_rocard_...

From polls I read, except for France, most people in the EU absolutely don't rejoice Brexit. But many - me included - think that, even if Brexit is a very sad fact, at least it could help fixing this kind of problems.

Actually, UK was never part of the EU ( fully). I'm glad that's over now, i don't think UK will benefit on the long term and I hope the responsable politicians will be punished.

But at least the will be no more exceptions for participating members of the EU.

The EU was a good concept, but exceptions to members states ( not only UK, but also for Belgium eg. To much debt), made it a lot less usefull

Damned politicians...

Ps. This is not a rant against UK, but against the 'broken' execution of the foundations throughout the years.

Also it's time to send a clear message, you can't get the benefits of you aren't a member

People in the UK voted to join the EC, not the EU. British leadership (Margaret Tatcher) was very straightforward from the begining about not joining the EMU/Eurozone.

But they were in the EU, it's not about the intention of not being in. Also EC is a predecessor of the EU. It also started with the BeNeLux before that

Exceptions on joining, but not participating 100% shouldn't be allowed in the first place

Remember, people voted to join the EC, and politicians then signed the UK up to the EU without asking the people. The UK was never meant to be part of the EU. The UK & US helped start the EU to prevent Europe from falling back into war, but it was never meant to engulf the UK, who as Churchill said, is too incompatible to ever be a part of it.

Plenty of examples of the supposedly core EU members flouting the rules when it suited them also.

The EU's worst nightmare is a successful UK post-Brexit. The general feeling amongst my friends and colleagues is that we are more than willing to put in the hard graft to make it happen. Anyone that thinks the UK will roll over is going to be disappointed.

Being an economic liberal, I always thought that this was one of the main advantages of the EU. Setup shop in one country and sell to the whole single market while encouraging beneficial tax competition. I do oppose special deals for specific companies though. Ireland, please stand up to the Brussels cartel!

An advantage for whom? For the rich? Sure. For all other people? No.

The problem is that it gives large multinational companies a strong competitive edge over single-national companies, and it makes tax money bleed from high-tax countries to low-tax countries. Both of these things are also self-reinforcing, accelerating the process.

(Not that I have any solutions to these problems, I'm just pointing them out. :) )

What is the advantage of tax competition? Small countries that only host headquarters can charge very low rates: they don't have most of the expenses of bigger countries, especially if they are under no military threat by their neighbors and therefore protected by them.

"Tax competition" is only beneficial to the rich and to smaller states that can steal taxes from bigger ones. But of course, if you oppose free schools, free healthcare, and you favor the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, I understand why you like it.

Corporate tax is one of the most damaging forms of taxation in terms of the number and size of distortions it creates in an economy and it is very damaging to national competitiveness as well. But being in favor of lower corporate tax does not preclude supporting various other wealth redistribution schemes to help the poor or reduce inequality.

If the EU is more concerned about the specific case of internet giants rather than multinational firms in general, they could tax this in a much more practical way by having state run internet service providers charge these content companies for access to their markets.

Fun fact: There is no IKEA store in Luxembourg

Another fun fact: There are no Apple stores in the Republic of Ireland.

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