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Comment by ineedasername | Hacker News Reader

>so any type of tax is justified?

That's a straw man. You're leaping from "some type of tax is justified" which is quite a bit more reasonable than "any tax".

And if you want to say it's a slippery slope or some such, well, ever single action if extrapolated to the extreme can be a viewed as such. If 3% is reasonable and then it's proposed to goes up and up, fight the increase, not the initial reasonable action. Of course this may be putting words in your mouth, so I won't attribute it to you, only that I preempt a logical counter to mine.

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> "That's a straw man."

No, it isn't.

Road tax pays for road maintenance. Municipal tax pays for municipal maintenance. VAT and Income Tax pay for government expenditure. Taxes are collected in exchange for a service.

Foreign businesses providing entirely digital services in France aren't actually receiving any kind of service back from the French government. In other words, this specific tax is just a mechanism for collecting money arbitrarily in exchange for nothing.

That's a slippery slope.

> Foreign businesses providing entirely digital services in France aren't actually receiving any kind of service back from the French government. In other words, this specific tax is just a mechanism for collecting money arbitrarily in exchange for nothing.

You've just ignored all the above posts without addressing them. The other posts make it clear without any counter argument from you that government provides a safe and stable addressable market to do business (and literally the currency).

That argument reduces down to “because a market exists” — is that really a compelling justification for this particular additional tax?

Because the dollars being used to pay for the digital good have already been taxed, probably many times over, by the time the credit card transaction settles and the merchant account is credited at the end of the week (or whenever).

It’s reasonable to question if this particular tax was designed in a way to target specific foreign companies, without a compelling nexus, which would make the tax predatory.

No government, no juicy market. Also > the merchant account is credited at the end of the week (or whenever).

Amazon doesn't pay taxes when they're the merchant.

> The other posts make it clear without any counter argument from you that government provides a safe and stable addressable market to do business (and literally the currency).

How does a government quantify providing "a safe and stable addressable market to do business"? What was the formula used to determine the tax bracket?

Unless we have a clear formula we can reason about, the tax would be arbitrary. Is that not the case?

Moreover, shouldn't the cost of providing "a safe and stable addressable market to do business" be a constant? We know how many French citizens utilize the service, and we should also (somehow) have the overall costs of "keeping the French market afloat". If so, why does the government tax a percentage of the total revenues?

Of course tax is arbitrary. Just look at the chicken tax [1] which despite its name, is a tax on light trucks - unless they're shipped to the US with extra seats which the dealer removes before the truck is sold.

If you're looking for a simple and logically designed system, the international tax system isn't it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax

In spanish we have two different words: tasa is what you are describing: a tasa is imposed to pay for a specific thing. Whereas an impuesto is a different thing that is simply put in a common account to pay for everything that is public, in whatever way the government sees fit. No need to link source and destination.

Think of it backwards: if we agree that X level of taxes need to be gathered to maintain common good, the government needs to gather it in the least unjust way possible. Taxing internet giants, to europeans, seem mostly just.

They do use communication networks and, in the case of Amazon, actual roads.

All taxes are a slippery slope. Name one that has ever been repealed. Income tax in the U.S. started out as a modest 3% on only the highest incomes and look where that has ended up: full on wealth redistribution.

We can argue whether that's a good thing or not, but not whether there's a slippery slope when it comes to implementing a new tax.

> Name one that has ever been repealed.

Taxes get repealed all the time. My province just repealed its carbon tax a few weeks ago: https://www.alberta.ca/carbon-tax-repeal.aspx

Tithe.

And even if I couldn't name a tax that was repealed, many are way lower than in the past.

Peasants would rebel because they'd be taxed to (literal!) death.

It's an easy question, have three.

Window tax. 1990s UK Poll tax. The luxury tax token system the US used before sales taxes.

In 1944 the highest US tax bracket was 94%

How many people actually paid that top rate? Or was that on paper only?

I'd happily go back to the effective rate of tax in 1944 if you are so willing.

If we're being facetious then I'm sure there will be plenty in France that are willing to compromise even more and go further back and implement the effective tax rate of 1794 on high earners.

GP asked for a tax that was repealed, not reduced.

https://www.atr.org/list-obamacare-taxes-repealed

The US just repealed and lowered some taxes a year and a half ago. Look back 4 or 5 decades US incomes taxes were way way way higher. You're simply wrong

> All taxes are a slippery slope. Name one that has ever been repealed. Income tax in the U.S. started out as a modest 3% on only the highest incomes and look where that has ended up: full on wealth redistribution.

> We can argue whether that's a good thing or not, but not whether there's a slippery slope when it comes to implementing a new tax.

Dude what? Wealth redistribution? Lots of countries have much higher taxes that actually redistribute that wealth. Don't call our system socialist, it isn't. Have you ever lived in socialism (I have)? It isn't even here in California!

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