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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”.

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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.

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