Hacker News Reader

Comment by Barrin92 | Hacker News Reader

Call me a democrat but I think the United States of America shouldn't have to justify its laws at all and should regulate Google's and Apple's store however they want, tax them 100% instead of 20%, after all they voluntarily made a business, they can move their HQ to Swaziland, who is to tell the American people how to regulate their businesses

It's not like Apple and Google can't move, there's like 200 countries, that's like a hundred times more countries than app stores

View on HN

The government of the USA is completely free to do that if the representatives agree, and let them live with the effects and consequences of their choices. And the demand for companies to operate in their country if they do. US corporate tax rates have been adjusted many times, and have been (until recently) among the highest in the world, but the benefits are worth it.

Your sarcasm about the flight of capital and corporations is maybe more right than you realize.

Sadly, maybe also the part about not having to justify its laws at all...

> the United States of America shouldn't have to justify its laws at all

We don’t have laws that Apple is breaking. Almost all legal analysts agree Epic’s case is a long shot designed to attract legislative intervention.

We could make some (but we won’t), and this justification would hold up just fine in that case; whether or not the laws actually exist is immaterial.

> We could make some (but we won’t), and this justification would hold up just fine in that case

Not really. Court cases are all about justifying why an action or inaction meets or fails a law. Legislation is all about justifying why a cause requires legislative action.

Exercising freedoms, for a person or group of people pursuing common enterprise, does not need to be justified. The moment it does, it’s not a right. And choosing how to price an unregulated inessential good outside emergency conditions is not activity Americans have to justify to their government.

> And choosing how to price an unregulated inessential good outside emergency conditions is not activity Americans have to justify to their government.

No, choosing how to price things is needed for modern capitalism to work which is why we have antitrust laws. The question you should ask yourself is "if the 30% tax is many times higher than what it costs Apple to deliver the service, what forces would cause Apple to reduce said tax?", if you can't come up with an answer then we need antitrust action here.

Why does apple have to deliver its service to a 3rd party at cost price? It can charge what it likes. If they charged 60% and all app developers moved over to google the market would soon follow or Apple would change.

The cost of the service for Apple is irrelevant in this court case.

I dunno.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Tax_Freedom_Act

Reads like a joke now?

Unironically, I would be happy with a sliding tax scale here - if Apple/Google takes x% of the purchase price, then there's an x% federal tax added on top of the purchase price.

Sales tax is taken care of by Apple from their 30% cut - ie. the 70% they give to the company is only taxable income and the company doesn't need to do anything or pay any extra to comply with national or local sales taxes [anywhere in the world].

I think they are most likely to move to Ireland or the Carribean and not Swaziland

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_erosion_and_profit_shif...

2. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leprechaun_economics

3. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement

They are already in Ireland :)

"United States of America shouldn't have to justify its laws"

Oh, absolutely 100% positively 'not true' - the US 100% has to 'justify it's laws'.

While 'something should be done here' I don't think prices need to be regulated, rather, just opening up fair market conditions in different layers of the value chain.

Just making 3rd party apps and app-stores available on each platform would suffice.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com