Upcoming price and tax changes for apps and in-app purchases
developer.apple.com
developer.apple.com
That's breaking a big psychological 1EUR barrier. Just inflation or weakening of EURO against the USD?
I know US stores often don't show prices including tax, just wondering if it's the same on the App Store.
Search for "state breakdown" for the US information
You are 100% correct about software sales. Georgia law says since there is no property being exchanged it’s not subject to sales tax. I didn’t know this until today. The law is kinda weird.
https://dor.georgia.gov/document/letter-ruling/lr-sut-2014-0...
… smaller businesses who cannot evade taxes quite as easily may compete on a more level playing field.
You're tackling tax-evasion by closing loopholes and increasing consequences for tax-evasion.
Decreasing taxes has no meaningful impact on the practice of tax-evasion, it doesn't "level" any playing field.
Is there anything that backs this up?
Ceteris paribus, I would be far more willing to dodge a 99% tax than I would be to dodge a 1% tax.
Those companies would then still not play by the rules and contribute to society accordingly, you would have adjusted YOUR rules to match THEIR sole interest (which might be based on a completely different motivation).
The question is then: Is your (dramatically) lowered tax-income then still enough to serve its intended purpose (maintaining public goods etc)?
I think it's logical that if you define a set of rules for a society to live in and some of its members are so powerful that they can circumvent the rules, abandoning the rules is not addressing your actual problem.
I reckon it is better to make the game fair for all by closing holes and punishing rule-breakers, instead of allowing the powerful players to set the beneficial rules for themselves.
But again, I think that's more of an interesting general exchange than a discussion about this parent-topic ;)
If your only goal is to get short term public good, just ban all small companies, inceltivize government backed/owned monopoly and tax them heavily so that profit is just marginal. You would get lot of tax revenue in short term, but it will destroy economy in the long term. And it is not just as a theoretical example, there was an entire failed political movement for this.
Obviously like everything in life, there is a fine balance in tax rate and this knob has lot of consequence.
Considering the amount of profits and cash reserves this company has, I don't see why some people are so opposed to taxing them. They're swimming in more money they can possibly use, what use is it? Close the loopholes and make them pay their fair share, they'll barely notice the difference anyway.
If prices go up due to inflation, so do Apple’s fees.
The one where a business gets to decide what they charge?
The free market loophole? The loophole where business pass costs on to customers?
Do you propose governments should set prices?
>Apple relied on a “complex web of offshore entities” and U.S. tax loopholes to avoid paying billions of dollars in U.S. taxes on $44 billion in offshore income over the past four years, according to excerpts from a Senate subcommittee report to be released tomorrow as Apple CEO Tim Cook testifies on the company’s overseas operations.
>The maker of iPhones and iPads used at least three foreign subsidiaries that it claims are not “tax resident in any nation” to help it avoid paying billions in “otherwise taxable offshore income,” the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations said in a statement today.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/connieguglielmo/2013/05/20/appl...
And they're not forcing it on Mac because that would cause outrage and people not upgrading the OS, and desktop/laptop computers are dying anyways.
Also, App Store on Mac definitely has fees.
Perfectly understandable IMHO.
(Webkit might be a platform to Google but it's not from Apple's point of view, it's merely one part of their platform offerings)
Vendor lock in is bad towards the customer so limiting it actually increases the free market.
What you think of is Laissez-faire
Yes, Apple can dictate terms in its own store the same way that your local grocer can.
When Android has 75% market share and multiple competing stores, we’re not even close to monopoly.
Would be all well and awesome if you had any freedom of choice on Apple's platform and weren't forced into being locked into their ecosystem where you pay a 15% Apple tax on every purchase. Say what you like about mobile platforms but making ridiculous comparisons like this doesn't help your case.
I don’t see how that is an argument against ”Yes, Apple can dictate terms in its own store the same way that your local grocer can.”. You don’t have freedom of choice as to who to buy from at your local grocer, either.
I think that, in principle, companies creating a market should be able to decide what gets sold there and demand any cut of sales they want.
That also is what I think laws say in most countries. It’s fairly normal with game consoles, for example, and I expect you can’t sell merchandise from studios competing with Disney (if they still exist) in Disneyland or sell ice cream there without Disney taking a significant cut, or sell Shell products at an Exxon pump.
The big question, though, is whether the market power of a few players in mobile apps is so undesirable that action is necessary, and if so, whether existing laws are sufficient to correct the issue, or whether the rules of the game should change and if so, how.
I think law will be changed, but how, I’m not sure about. Any law saying “this applies only to companies Foo, Bar and Baz” will be shut down in courts, so arguments must be formulated as to what exactly is wrong with the current situation, and decisions will have to be made as to whether those rules also should apply to, for example, game consoles.
Exactly, and this isn't a problem because you have plenty of choice as to which grocer you patronize.
There are plenty of mobile app stores. If you don't like Apple's, then grab an Android and use Amazon's.
I say this just so that people with strong opinions on HN remember there are two sides to every coin.
Who is forced into using their ecosystem?
Apple doesn’t license its operating system to other OEMs, it doesn’t have anywhere near 90% market share and EU case law is irrelevant in the US.
> In 1993, the American software company Novell claimed that Microsoft was blocking its competitors out of the market through anti-competitive practices. The complaint centered on the license practices at the time which required royalties from each computer sold by a supplier of Microsoft's operating system, whether or not the unit actually contained the Windows operating system.
If a company has reached the dominance of being taxed above average (or fined) due to their market behavior, them continuing to take the same money from the consumer SHOULD create room for other entrants in the same market-segment to balance the competition.
If a company has reached such a state in a major market-segment that it can simply forward all additive costs for anti-competitive or market-dominating behavior to the consumer without consequences in sales, it probably means that the company is already way too big and should have been regulated much earlier...
However, I doubt that anything like this is at play here.
so it's okay to substantutivaly reduce their tax burden as done today but not to increase it because that would mean a closed market?
> Fining a company also has a negative consequence as it makes less rewarding for small company to grow
There's so many more differences than just 'fines', I don't think you can draw that simple a conclusion.
It's also not about taxing a specific company, taxes are used to discourage/incentivize certain movement in a market.
If you (an individual) pay higher tax for using fossil fuels than renewable energy, you are incentivized to use renewable energy.,
If you have the option to tax-deduct your retirement plan, you are incentivized to invest in a retirement plan.
In a just system, a FINE is ordered for breaking rules. I doubt that fining a company for i.e. anti-competitive behavior makes it "less rewarding" for small companies in the same space to grow. Moreover, those small companies were likely affected by those anti-competitive behaviors, as they were competitors.
I think there's a very big space for a small company/startup to grow before it'd attain the same level of scrutiny by Govs as Apple
There is nothing new here in Europe. It is what it is for 5 years now. What is different than before is the inflation and the massive devaluation of the EUR against the USD over the last year. That is the reason why the new iPhone 14 prices sharply increased in EUR.
The change with the tax only applies to Vietnam. To my knowledge as a European citizen, Vietnam is far far away from Europe and not anywhere near. I know, that US people have problems with Geography.
- Who Really Pays Business Taxes? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDqVDw9qfH4
> The elementary fact is that “business” does not and cannot pay taxes. Only people can pay taxes. Corporate officials may sign the check, but the money that they forward to Internal Revenue comes from the corporation’s employees, customers or stockholders. A corporation is a pure intermediary through which its employees, customers and stockholders cooperate for their mutual benefit.
Newsweek column from 1971-11-29 according to https://www.americanexperiment.org/milton-friedman-on-corpor...
I would point out though that including stockholders into that quote makes it very different. I mean to me that is equivalent to the company paying the taxes.
(I’m personally pro taxes in general, including for corporations).