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The idea that private industry is always more efficient than the public sector is, at best, an over simplification. One need look no further than healthcare to find an example where the public sector is vastly more efficient than a market of competing, private sector companies.

The state also spends money on things that would not be funded any other way. Pure-scientific research, such as CERN. Policing for people too poor to hire private security services. The idea that these things are "the opposite of value" is ludicrous.

Also, if you're not going to tax Google and Amazon, then that gives large international companies who can dodge tax a huge advantage over smaller national companies who cannot. That undermines the underlying principle of capitalism: competition. Either you tax no companies, or all of them - any halfway position is worse than either.

Public health-care is a complete failure here in France. We actually pay more than Switzerland where it's privatize and the French assurance maladie is going completely bankrupt while being forced on us. Many pure scientific research have been done by private entities, I don't see why only public programs could do any pure scientific research. Plus, if the people were given their money back , maybe they could use it to invest in stuff they actually care about such as pure scientific research which only represent like 1 or 2% of our national budget today.

As for policing, I don't think anyone disagrees that it should remain public. Justice and Police and Military security are what the state exists for. Not for subsidizing movie producers or a dying paper media industry like we do here in France. I'm ok with a low flat tax that everyone would pay to sustain the basic functions of the state. It would probably be cheaper for Google and Amazon compared to whatever they're paying their accountants to design their tax schemes and give them huge gain in time wasted for bureaucracy.

In the face of ideology there is little to discuss...

WHO ranks the French health care system as the best in the world, and the expenditure per capita is less than Switzerland (at least in 2007), so I'm not sure where you're getting your numbers from.

I also suspect you'd have a hard time finding private companies willing to spend $9 billion on a particle accelerator with no foreseeable profits.

I'm generally against subsidising any industry, but letting Google and Amazon get away with dodging tax is effectively the same thing as a subsidy. Speaking as someone who owns a small company, I'd rather the playing field be level.

> WHO ranks the French health care system as the best in the world, and the expenditure per capita is less than Switzerland (at least in 2007), so I'm not sure where you're getting your numbers from.

http://www.securite-sociale.info/

http://reachfinancialindependence.com/french-healthcare/

FYI: it's forbidden by law to leave social security in France and to encourage others to do so. Best system ever indeed, once you get it you never leave it unless you're ok with jail time.

Those sources don't appear to quote any hard numbers, and don't seem to dispute the WHO's methodology, but then again I can't read French :)

Sarkozy was elected in 2008 and he significantly lowered what national healthcare pays for you. You now need to pay for both a national healthcare and a private insurance to complete the cost. Problem is national healthcare is not a real insurance, what you pay is based on your salary, not your actual risk. So people with no risk end up paying much more than they would with a private insurance. My family in the Netherlands and Switzerland pay way less than I do.

The WHO report is back from 2000, so it's certainly possible the rankings have changed since.

Why on earth do you live in France? It sounds like you don't believe in anything that makes France France.

And health care is most definitely more expensive in Switzerland than France. It's privatized but there are strict regulations on how much money insurance companies can make and all citizens are required by law to have insurance.

> Not for subsidizing movie producers

France makes great movies, but they could never compete against Hollywood financially. I for one am quite glad that France does what they need to to make sure good, original French movies (ok, not all of them, but much better than Hollywood) don't lose out to fast-food garbage the US is pumping out.

Your post is a tirade against taxation in general, it's not pertinent to the point at hand.

Obviously (most) governments want to avoid a situation where a foreign entity is strong enough to destroy any local competitor and on top of that, contribute nothing back to the economy in terms of tax revenue. It's completely ridiculous.

If you deliver goods and services in a country, you should expect to pay the appropriate taxes in that country. It is completely unjust that Google et al can do this kind of thing, it puts local companies at a massive disadvantage.

It's not tirade against taxes in general, it's a tirade against spending. Don't you understand that states have clearly refused to cut their spending and that their only answer is more taxes? We're already at 60 to 70% taxes here in France and they always need more because they refuse to cut spending, not only do they refuse to cut them but they make them bigger each year. First they're coming for Google and Amazon but you don't care because they're not you, then they'll come for your money. Here in France even if you earn around €40k, you're close to a 50% tax already when you sum they all up. They are so desperate that they even went after Nutella to tax the palm oil they use pretending it was dangerous even though scientist said there was nothing special about it [1].

The second article of the Déclaration des droits de l'Homme clearly states that private and individual properties ought to be protected. Where is the respect for private property when 50% of your property is taken by force by the State every year. Our whole revolution was about fighting unfair taxation, privileges for the few and insane State spending... and now we're back to square 1.

1: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/12/france-nutella-a...

As a French citizen, do you think it's fair that you get taxed at a high rate whilst some huge, billion dollar business pays significantly less in terms of percentage?

Whether the French tax rate is too high or not is not relevant. The question is, should a foreign company be given an unfair advantage compared to a local company? I would hope your answer is 'no'.

Google and Amazon already pay plenty enough taxes here, they employ thousands of people and pay millions in salary tax. They contribute to improving people's life thanks to their great products unlike the State that only creates more debt.

But to answer your question, I think that as a French citizen I pay too much tax and I'm glad Google and Amazon are able to get away with it. I applaud anyone who manages to not feed the beast. I, on the contrary, feel guilty for paying so much tax and helping keep this monster of State alive. The answer is less tax for everyone, not more tax especially on the company that actually manage to make a lot of money and create a lot of work. And yes, local companies are dying here because of the crazy taxation, and taxing Google and Amazon more wouldn't change anything for local companies.

>> I think that as a French citizen I pay too much tax and I'm glad Google and Amazon are able to get away with it.

Even though their activities directly increase your own tax bill. You have an odd way of thinking.

>> taxing Google and Amazon more wouldn't change anything for local companies.

Of course it would, their tax avoidance games mean nobody else can compete.

You can argue that lower tax for everyone is a good thing, but I really don't see how you can argue for the perpetuation of special exemptions for those that can afford it.

> Even though their activities directly increase your own tax bill. You have an odd way of thinking.

The French State creates € 12 billions in debt each month [1]. If you think them paying any more taxes would decrease my tax bill in any way, then you have an odd way of doing math.

1: http://www.planetoscope.com/comptes-publics/315-compteur-de-...

> Of course it would, their tax avoidance games mean nobody else can compete.

Are you seriously saying that the reason Google has no competition in France is because they pay less taxes? Even Microsoft, the multi-billion dollar company failed to do so with Bing but if only Google paid its full taxes then French companies would be able to take over is what you're saying? I very much doubt that.

> I really don't see how you can argue for the perpetuation of special exemptions for those that can afford it

As long as there is no low flat-tax but unfair and complicated tax system. People will always try to avoid it. Get rid of your insane tax system and you'll get rid of these special exemptions. Just like getting rid of alcohol prohibition got rid of the bootlegging problems.

>> If you think them paying any more taxes would decrease my tax bill in any way, then you have an odd way of doing math.

Them paying more would either relieve the burden on other parts of society, slow down the debt accumulation (even just a little bit), or allow the government to spend more on public services. All of these three have an impact on your life. If you think it would have no effect at all then you have an odd way of doing math.

>> Are you seriously saying that the reason Google has no competition in France is because they pay less taxes?

Maybe, who knows? But what we have at the moment is market distortion and monetary advantages for multinationals that can play these games. Certainly the likes of Starbucks (who pay little to no UK tax) have a direct financial advantage against smaller operators and local chains.

>> As long as there is no low flat-tax but unfair and complicated tax system.

This is a pipe dream, and any flat tax I've ever seen proposed is highly regressive, loading the burden onto the middle classes (and away from the very wealthy). What I find most amusing about it is how the very wealthy have so many cheerleaders who are in effect arguing for higher taxes for themselves.

>> People will always try to avoid it.

Yes, but you seem to be supporting your own country getting screwed by large corporations and transferring that burden to yourself, French companies and French citizens.

>> Get rid of your insane tax system and you'll get rid of these special exemptions. Just like getting rid of alcohol prohibition got rid of the bootlegging problems.

It's not quite that simple unfortunately.

>> Them paying more would either relieve the burden on other parts of society, slow down the debt accumulation (even just a little bit), or allow the government to spend more on public services.

But this is exactly what I'm saying, the more taxes we pay, the more the government spends and create debt. The only way out of this vicious circle is _less_ spending, not more tax. We've been doing more taxes for 60 years and we have more debts than ever.

> Are you seriously saying that the reason Google has no competition in France is because they pay less taxes?

>> Maybe, who knows?

Ok, you're just not being honest right now just to win the argument. Or you're delusional.

>> This is a pipe dream, and any flat tax I've ever seen proposed is highly regressive, loading the burden onto the middle classes

I don't know in what world you live in, but here in France, the burden is already on the middle class. The rich are all domiciled outside of France where they pay much less (around 10 to 15%). A low flat tax around 10 to 15% would bring them back as they would have no interest in going abroad. Many countries have a flat tax http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_tax#Countries_that_have_fl...

>> Yes, but you seem to be supporting your own country getting screwed by large corporations and transferring that burden to yourself, French companies and French citizens.

No, I think you are. By setting too high taxes, you make the rich run away and pay their taxes elsewhere, leaving the burden on the middle class who's dying.

>> It's not quite that simple unfortunately.

It is actually. Just not in the interest of the current governments (both left and right are socialist in France).

>> But this is exactly what I'm saying, the more taxes we pay, the more the government spends and create debt.

I'm not sure there's a causal relationship there.

>>The only way out of this vicious circle is _less_ spending, not more tax. We've been doing more taxes for 60 years and we have more debts than ever.

Lower taxes all round is a fine idea. Letting some multinationals off from their tax bill is not a step in the right direction to achieving it.

>> Ok, you're just not being honest right now just to win the argument. Or you're delusional.

I'm being totally honest, the effective tax breaks given to multinationals via their various international financial games are a market distortion that disadvantages smaller players and breaks competition.

>> I don't know in what world you live in, but here in France, the burden is already on the middle class. The rich are all domiciled outside of France where they pay much less (around 10 to 15%). A low flat tax around 10 to 15% would bring them back as they would have no interest in going abroad. Many countries have a flat tax

That list isn't a particularly prestigious club...

Many would say that they should stay abroad if they're not willing to pay to be part of the society we're creating in the west.

As a counterpoint, most people seem to agree that some small percentage of earners pay over half of income tax in most western countries anyway (the threat of rich flight is always used as an excuse not to raise taxes further). Any flat tax that brought in the same amount of money as the present system would relieve this burden from them. Any flat tax that didn't bring in the same amount of money is pointless to argue about because we could reduce the overall tax take in any of a huge number of ways.

Whether the absent rich would return in sufficient numbers to make any impact at all is really a matter of speculation.

Perhaps, but isn't it better for companies like Google and Amazon to have competitors than a tax free advantage? Trickle down economics isn't a solution.

The thing here is not about "more taxes" or "less taxes". It is about WHO pays the taxes, however high or low they are. Giving a big competitive advantage to these (mostly US) corporations isn't going to lower your taxes in France; on the contrary, you don't just have to pay more taxes (or create more debt).

Any observers here for the last 60 years have noticed that the more tax revenues we get, the more ambitious we get with out spending and the more debt we create. The day France gets no or too little tax revenue and very bad rating is the day it'll be forced to cut spending. Until then, time has proven that it will never seriously cut spending.

Correlation is definitely not causation...

But there is a clear causation here. In order to keep increasing spending forever as they are doing, govs need tax revenue, the more money they are allowed to borrow, the more debt they can create. They couldn't create so much debt if they didn't have tax revenue to justify their ability to repay their debt. Problem is, at some point, if you want to keep on increasing spending and therefor your debt forever, you have to increase taxes forever too and that's what's killing the economy. Not to mention that it doesn't even work http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve

Come on, no serious economist gives credit to Laffer's curve - until taxation goes over something like 70%. And it's incredibly easy to demystify: Just try to check how many times taxes were increased, and fiscal revenues increased. If we were on the descending slope of that curve, increasing taxes would decrease fiscal revenue.

Check the news, in France we've just reach this point. This year the State is getting a decrease in tax revenue despite a tax increase. Heh, at least they would have accomplished something useful: they proved an old theory right!

>Because the more profit Google and Amazon make, the more value they produce for society as in more work, better technology, better life etc.

Yea, because trickle down economics works fantastic: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/business/12scene.html?_r=0