Germany eyes 10% digital tax on global tech groups | Hacker News Reader

Germany eyes 10% digital tax on global tech groups

ft.com

68 pointssaubeidl95 comments

This sort of thing really needs to be coordinated on EU level. Having different countries doing this in their own way isn't going to work out well in the end. But it's clear something needs to be done. Taxes should be extracted on profits, where the profits are generated. But doing this properly would require re-thinking _a lot_ of how businesses are taxed, not only digital giants. Anyone who uses schemes where IP is sold between various sister companies and finally profits are generated in some tax haven, would be targeted in a revamp of this kind. This would be a massive upheaval.

Doing everything in a chaotic uncoordinated manner helps local companies and the biggest international players eliminate smaller foreign players..

> Taxes should be extracted on profits, where the profits are generated.

No need to make it so complicated, if a company have revenue above X billion then pay X% tax on the revenue local or global revenue.

You forget that EU countries are adversaries, especially where it comes to tax (ie. money for the government to spend). Ireland has a minimum tax rate for international companies, with deductions for employment (as in numbers). It's not a coincidence what's happening.

Yes, but the EU are "collaborating" adversaries in a lot of ways. There is a lot of pressure that can (and is) being put on e.g. Ireland for this.

Corporate lawyers would argue this is already happening and they are partially correct its a really tough problem because there are valid points on both sides. Take a simple product. Say all the design and development work happens globally to create IP that is the how of the product. Production and integration into a product happens in southeast asia. Sales happen globally but lets look at a sale in Germany. If you sell it for Y , you manufacture it for X and you have a large sunk cost for the IP you need to recover C, your profit is Y-X - C/units sold. Units sold is unknown until you finish selling the product potentially years later. It's not at all cut and dry which part should get allocated what profit. What Germany is doing with this tax is arbitrarily pushing more of the profit to the end sale, where potentially none of the work to make the product and very minimal to none of the design work may have been done, which isn't necessarily right/fair/justified.

Yes, this is arbitrary. So e.g in Germany there would be an argument about how much of the ad revenue Facebook does in Germany should be reduced by R&D costs that happened elsewhere.å

why wouldn't it be reduced by R&D costs that happened elsewhere? if the German flew to wherever the R&D costs were incurred they would certainly be charged and net profit would be figured out accounting for those costs. if a German distributor bought whatever the product was and imported it to Germany they would be charged for those R&D costs and they would show an arms length transaction proving their profit was less by said R&D costs and if the government charged them tax as if they weren't charged for those R&D costs they would go out of business because they would not be profitable/have to spend so much estimating what portion of what they were charged was R&D (because they don't know and can't know for sure).

> why wouldn't it be reduced by R&D costs that happened elsewhere?

It would be reduced. The profit can’t be 100% of their German as revenue because obviously they have costs elsewhere. But the argument of some countries is now that it also can’t be 0%.

> German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s centre-left coalition agreed to “evaluate” a tax on internet platforms in its treaty signed in early May, agreeing that the proceeds should be used to strengthen the country’s media landscape.

Not sure in what world Merz's coalition could ever be considered centre-left. It's a coalition of the conservative party (which moved much further right under his leadership) and the centrist Social Democrats (who equally moved to the right/center under current and former leadership). Calling them "centre-right" could perhaps be acceptable, all while "conservative" is also a widespread label.

Especially since the only party to the right of Merz are actual right-wing extremists.

So it makes sense then: there are two parties. The center is the imaginary line in the middle. One of the parties is center-left, the other is center-right. Logic! :)

On the other hand, in modern European politics very often anything that is traditional right wing is labeled "far right extremists" anyway at this point, especially if they are a bit too critical of the EU and open borders. The only thing 'acceptable' is "centre right".

For instance in France, at this point, the National Rally (Le Pen) is not really more in the right than the traditional conservative/right wing party was in the 70s and 80s (with years in government). It is plainly just "the right" and largest party in Parliament, yet they are labeled dangerous far right extremists because it is (less and less) helpful politically...

Not sure exactly how the political positioning is in Germany but overall "far right" and "right-wing extremists" have lost all meaning generally in Europe because those terms are so abused. The current German government coalition does not seem to particularly reflect the democratic result of the latest election (majority on the right), same as in France.

I'd say the coalition is just "center" with the CDU being center-right and the SPD being center-left that seems like a good conclusion..

How did the SPD move to the right? By forming a coalition with the CDU? That claim sounds very dubious to me..

The SPD started moving to the right shortly after Schröder was elected chancellor. Their policies curbed the welfare system in a "only Nixon could go to China manner".

Schröder is long gone and especially the current SPD seems a good distance from Schröder's politics.

I see very much a continuity of the Agenda 2010 attitude within the party.

Considering how far behind the European Union is in the digital services industry, and considering the need to decouple from the American circus, a strategic move towards preying on digital services through tariffs or taxes is a logical option.

Western europe- eastern europe is not afflicted by this particular malaise.

How about we talk openly about it- there is a limited number of perfectly good heads- and fabrication industries and service industries are in systemic competition on that limited pool. And they create their own support environment ("bloated universities") where the service wins and destroy the competition.

> Western europe- eastern europe is not afflicted by this particular malaise.

The lure of USA protection lingers in Eastern Europe - some just haven't realized the new reality yet.

Eastern europe has software nailed down. Poland, chechoslvovakia, the baltics- they are naturals in this.

As if western europe wouldn't have the skills. Eastern Europe has not relevant international software industry outside of JetBrains. Same as western europe which at least has SAP and Spotify.

CD Project Red

Forgot to subtract the nordics from western europe. My bad.

Why aren't they meaningfully competing with Ireland as centres for software, if that's the case?

Obviously Czechoslovakia has a great excuse, not having existed for 32 years, but neither Czechia nor Slovakia come close to Ireland, either is terms of Euro-value or number of software jobs.

Ireland's software exports dwarf Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, and the Baltics combined. That's ignoring the inflated GDP figures from international IP revenue tax-dodging.

Ireland is a tax haven that parasitically deprives the rest of the EU of tax revenue. It's not a viable model to emulate and would cause a race to the bottom, at the expense of the public and to the benefit of the modern day robber barons.

> Ireland is a tax haven that parasitically deprives the rest of the EU of tax revenue.

The days of the Double Irish are long gone and comparing effective tax rates paints a very different story, so this is 5 years out of date in as true as it ever was.

Even excluding the EU IP revenue of multinationals with EMEA HQs in Ireland, real software development revenue is over double Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, and the Baltics combined.

Are you asserting that 5 years of no specific imbalance is long enough to offset decades of software ecosystem building driven by tax cuts?

Not by tax cuts, by tax policy. One which the bloc was happy to enable when it wanted to pass the Lisbon treaty.

But that's irrelevant, as ghost HQs can avail of Ireland's tax regime with minimal employees.

Ireland's extremely educated workforce and exceptionally stable and peaceful governance along with business friendly economic climate are the reason Ireland is a software powerhouse, independent of tax regime (which is not particularly conducive to large employers).

Wasn't Ireland used for tax evasion for a long time ? Wondering if that might be somehow related & how irish some of those companies are in practice.

Also there are quite a few successful gaming companies in central and eastern Europe - like CD project (Witcher/Cyberpunk) in Poland and Factorio, Mafia, Kingdom Come from Czech Republic.

Also on the IT driven services are there are quite big companies like like Alza/Allegro (eq. local Amazon), Seznam (eq. local Google), Windy (weather), etc.

Ehm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_Czechoslovakia

I very much agree from contractors I’ve worked with from Poland and the like, but the same areas don’t produce a lot of international software companies. Lack of capital for venture businesses in those regions? Hard to pin down.

I have personal anecdote how bonkers eastern european digital system is.

My child was born in NZ and in order to gain dual citizenship you need to submit form in Lithuanian.

To access e-gov you used to have so many cool methods - most popular is your bank (makes sense since they’d have highest stakes and worked out security), then your local SIM card finally your ID card. Well first ones are off the table since I was away for so long. I managed to source a usb smart card reader. Even somehow more luckily find working software. By shred of luck my card is not expired (card is valid for 10years, but digital certificates on chip for 18 months lol).

I’m in. The digital form is ok, albeit designed before mobile era so definitely won’t work in mobile screen. Fine. Submit it. Two weeks later I get a response (clearly my form was just dumped as an email) that in fact I need to meet face to face to ID me and my child…

Fortunately thru personal connections I was able to do so via video call.

Contrast that to NZ. In 10 years here I didn’t get to meet beurocrat even once. I’ve mailed a form and received passport by post. Low tech but sublime experience.

So, tarrifs are understandable when countries in Europe want to bolster local industries and decrease reliance on foreign countries, but not when the US does the same?

Tarrifs are on physical goods, by definition.

Did you intend to reply to GP?

I dont believe anything in my comment stated the contrary.

You were complaining about a perceived double standard with this vs US tariffs.

I pointed out this wouldn't be tariffs since it's not on physical goods, hence the comparison you made doesn't really make sense.

GP was the one who specifically mentioned "some kind of tarrif on digital services", I merely responded in kind.

The technicalities of whether it's "tax" or "tariff" is irrelevant, in the context they both bring about the same desired outcome.

I skipped right past it because I understood what GP was getting at, and saw no need to get pedantic over the wording.

The US definitely did not do the same.

If it was made in a logical and consise way, yes, not if it's made by, what looked like, trump high on meth

What tarrifs would you like to see implemented to achieve this effect, and how would they differ from the current administration's approach that apparently "looked like trump high on meth"?

No one would have been surprised if the US had increased tariffs on airplanes to cushion Boeing’s failings, understanding that this specific sector may be seen as vital interests. Europe could have replied with tariffs on space launches to avoid reliance on space-x in an equally strategic sector.

On the other hand, blanket tariffs levied on countries rather than specific industries don’t look like they serve a specific industrial policy.

For modern digital service usage, I wouldn't necessarily look at the US as a leader. It's bureaucracy rivals that of big countries in the EU. And a lot of that is still based on form filling. Germany is definitely a basket case on that front (I live there). But I wouldn't rank the US much higher. I've lived in Finland and Sweden as well, which are much better and more efficient. And I'm from the Netherlands, which has modernized quite a bit unlike Germany. Places like California aren't necessarily a lot better and possibly worse in some areas. I've never lived there but I've talked to plenty of people that spent some time there.

Also, if you look at manufacturing, Europe still provides some essential things. SAP, a German company, is a global market leader in ERP and related software. Companies like Tesla buy high their high tech machines from Germany. And the machines that make the chips that are power the AI revolution are made by ASML, headquartered in the EU. US manufacturing is a lot weaker than EU manufacturing at this point.

So, I don't think it is that black and white and there are a lot of things in the US that aren't necessarily very modern or nice.

And for taxation, there's the argument to be made that there are an awful lot of US companies with extreme valuation rivaling the GDP of most EU countries that seem to be very good at dodging taxes in the EU despite getting a lot of their revenue there. There's a lot of talk about trade imbalances lately, and this has been an obvious candidate for balancing. So, I don't think this is such a strange thing to do for the EU to be publicly musing doing something about that in light of all the tariffs that Trump is threatening with currently.

Which is of course what this is all about.

Whilst the large U.S. corporates continue to use tax avoidance schemes concocted by the accounting big four, the only choice left to countries being taken a ride via missing tax revenue via the traditional profit based taxation is to tax revenue in the countries they are operating.

I think this is a “shot across the bow” for companies like Apple, Google, Amazon and Microsoft.

France have already started to implement their version of this digital tax.

The U.S. is pressuring EU companies to follow their drive for removing anti-discrimination policies.

Europeans are starting to notice this unbalanced relationship, where the U.S. doesn’t believe it needs to follow the same rules it tries to dish out to other countries.

Make US business in our countries pay their way and follow our laws. That’s the very basis of sovereignty.

I really hate that political doublespeak, as in 2nd paragraph:

    Germany’s federal commissioner for media and culture, Wolfram Weimer, told Stern magazine on Thursday that the new government is drafting a digital levy on global internet platforms, although alternatives like a voluntary commitment by the affected tech companies to pay more tax in Germany are also still under consideration.

voluntary...

people who see "Your money or your life" as a free choice scenario

In Texas the phrase has traditionally been “Plato o Plomo” which translates to “Silver or Lead” fyi

That sounds more like a Mexican cartel thing, you know, organized crime extortion and being in Spanish and all.

In spanish it's plata - silver. The word comes through latin from a greek word that says "flat", probably because silver sheets are flat.

It's voluntary the same way people work shitty jobs "voluntarily". If they don't, they'll starve, but they always have that option I suppose.

The beauty of the free market - either do what the capitalist class does or die, freely.

None of those big conpanies would die by paying more tax in Germany; so much so, that I bet they’d prefer to call the bluff and leave the country entirely rather than pay more taxes. The move then becomes “your government is evil and is forcing us to deprive you of our awesome service/product, call your elected representative”.

I believe American Big Tech greatly overestimates their popularity in Europe, especially in Germany. This move would backfire dramatically.

However, WhatsApp is the default messaging app in Germany (second only to fax /s). Facebook is the default platform in Sweden. I think other EU countries also rely heavily on US big tech.

I think they would just pay the taxes but increase their prices so their bottom-line looks about the same. In the end it would be the consumers in Germany that paid the price.

That assumes that demand would stay the same with price increases.

It's voluntary the same way you can voluntarily pay the amount of money the state decides you owe for income tax.

Except the state is your elected representation in a democracy. The market is just what moneyed interests want.

That changes nothing about how "voluntary" that "voluntary commitment" is, that you can, at your own will, choose instead of paying the same amount in taxes.

If I point a gun at you and ask for your wallet, you can voluntarily give it to me, but that doesn't make it less of a robbery.

The homeless have the freedom to sleep under the bridge.

There's a beautiful German song that deals with the abusive use of the term "freedom": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4Zj-S-OdZs

Here's a (somewhat clumsy, but still gets the point across) translation of the lyrics https://lyricstranslate.com/en/meine-freiheit-deine-freiheit...

Law, in a concern for equality, prohibits the rich as well as the poor from sleeping under bridges, begging, or stealing bread.

This is good and too little, too late. Tech giants have become more powerful than most governments, and that is a net negative for society. As much as this community might love to hate politics and government, and despite all their inefficiencies and corruption, they STILL operate with a set of fundamental incentives that are more aligned to the benefit of all society. Giant tech companies are only aligned to a set of incentives established by a small cadre of stakeholders, and in fact are the prime driver of the unsustainable growth in wealth disparity and inequality.

In short: suck it up big tech; please go harder governments.

> This is good and too little, too late. Tech giants have become more powerful than most governments, and that is a net negative for society.

> In short: suck it up big tech; please go harder governments.

Meanwhile EU is trying to undermine security of all citizens and Meta is promoting it.

‘ProtectEU’ security strategy: a step further towards a digital dystopian future https://edri.org/our-work/protecteu-security-strategy-a-step...

WhatsApp Goes All In on Privacy with ‘Not Even WhatsApp’ Campaign https://the420.in/whatsapp-not-even-whatsapp-privacy-campaig...

Meanwhile, “we kill people based on metadata” means it hardly matters that the message payload is encrypted. Who you are messaging and when is sold to commercial actors and given to the US government if they ask for it lawfully.

The privacy stuff is typical PR and marketing. They say it’s good for privacy because that’s what people want to hear. After the Snowden leak revelations and CryptoAG, it seems incredibly naive to look at any mass-communication platform from a US company with anything short of suspicion. The only question is whether or not there is somehow a backdoor for the actual encrypted message but US intelligence doesn’t really need that, anyway.

>Meanwhile EU is trying to undermine security of all citizens and Meta is promoting it.

The EU is a complex political body. Parts of it are trying that, lobbied by a toxic American big tech corporation. A corporation that carelessly enabled genocide in Myanmar, btw, so it won’t certainly have any qualms about steering a foreign political body towards its own goals.

https://archive.ph/pBjiY

See, the tariffs are working as they traditionally do - in that they are turning nations into scenarios where they look to local development rather than importing. Unintended consequences resulting in the US being on the losing end? I’m not surprised in the least considering the clearly sunsetting mental state of a failed businessman narcissist trying to run the nation via social media and spurious dictates.

Without knowing the specifics, this will be a good precedent for the eventual necessity of taxing genAI (e.g. to offset losses in personal income taxes).

...but what do I know, I'm just a semi-retired, blue-collar electrician — chatting since GPT-2.

10% tax on what? The ads? The services?

Revenue

How do they know the revenue was booked in Germany?

The same way they calculate the VAT for Germany.

This is how to lose and this is why tech founders don't start companies in Europe as they know what happens when they get too big.

For every 1 "tech company" founded in Europe, there are 5 more of the same founded in the US.

This assumes that gigantic companies like Apple, Microsoft and Google are a good thing that should be emulated.

They objectively are, from the perspective of a country.

There's no such thing as objective when it comes to politics. What you perceive as objective truth is just a reflection of your ideology.

Okay, "subjectively" then.

That answers your question then - they (and I) subjectively don't perceive it as a good thing ;)

Sure, and from the perspective of your countries leaders, they don't appear to agree, seeing as how they haven't banned these companies outright.

So objectively, it appears more countries agree with my subjective judgement than not.

Reading your username, are you by any chance Austrian?

What is a country? Is it the same as its citizen?

...or that anyone who thinks "I'd start a company if I could become the next Apple, but otherwise it's pointless" is someone you want running a company.

Maybe giant tech companies controlling our lives and subverting our democracies are not a good thing?

I wish the UK would make itself even more competitive here, although it's already pretty competitive: 2.13 unicorns per million people vs 4.41 unicorns per million people in the US; 3% of Brits work for "tech" companies as opposed to 1.8% of Americans. It's also going to feel highly similar to home to a great many Europeans.

UK already has ludicrously, insanely generous tax-breaks on small scale venture funding (SEIS), fully 1/3 of the world's top ten universities within a small radius (and another fifty great ones), first-rate banking services, strong rule of law, and pretty limited bureaucracy (outside of land planning).

"All" it needs to do is build enough houses and stop obsessing about immigrants...

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