• ccunning@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    The anti-coercion instrument, known as the “big bazooka” of the EU’s trade arsenal, would give the commission powers to go after US multinational companies, slapping extra taxes on the digital revenues of tech firms.

      • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Agreed.

        Our own government isn’t doing anything to stop him. Let Europe do something to stand in his way.

    • rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      And the very next line:

      This is a major escalation the Irish Government wants to avoid.

      Have they tried going back to before they were a crooked tax haven for unethical corporations? I knew as soon as they decided to be a tax shelter that they would become what I believe the Br*tish call, “A cunt in the machinery.”

      • paranoia@feddit.dk
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        1 day ago

        Have they tried going back to before they were a crooked tax haven for unethical corporations?

        1209 North Orange Street in Wilmington alone evades more tax than Ireland.

        It’s lovely to throw stones, but you’re in the most delicate glasshouse of them all.

        • rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works
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          20 hours ago

          I support the Global Tax Agreement but think it’s a little too lenient. A real 15% tax would do way more for everyone except the corporations than a 15% tax with loopholes allowed. So I’m not exactly sitting in a glass house?

          I don’t think EVERY country should impose those rates but any “first world” country needs to. let the developing world impose lower rates or even incentives if that’s what works for them but if the economy is roaring along lets get some of that wealth into the public coffers.

    • someguy3@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Then the tech firms raise prices in the EU. That’s what happened to Canada and Canada backed down. The only difference is the EU may want to encourage their own tech companies to grow.

      • Mio@feddit.nu
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        32 minutes ago

        Of course EU want our own tech companies. It would benefit us all. At minimum competition. Digital soverntity. And this is also what EU will do no matter what Trump does. Trump broke the chain of trust. Unacceptable.

      • MuskyMelon@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        If the EU gives more incentives to their companies, US tech firms will come back begging like little bitches to claim EU domicile.

        • elucubra@sopuli.xyz
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          2 days ago

          What people don’t seem to realize is that the US effectively subsidizes the digital sector by means of minimal taxation. The EU should tax the fuck out of US tech companies, and incentive European alternatives and especially FOSS.

          Oh,and Ireland (country that I love, btw), get rid of the parasitic sector, wich may bring in money, but also fucks up your country. See housing, for example.

          • ThisIsDys@europe.pub
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            11 hours ago

            I don’t know how we’ve been getting record corporate taxes year after year (to say nothing of our income taxes on the higher salaries tech companies pay thousands of Irish employees), and yet:

            • Infrastructure remains shit and underdeveloped
            • Inequality of development, amenities, and pay between Dublin and everywhere else gets worse every year.
            • We’ve failed to build a solid bedrock of homegrown companies to replace the fragile reliance on MNC employment and corporate taxes.
            • Pension age bomb is still ticking

            I maintain that low corporate taxes are, unfortunately, crucial for underdeveloped nations to have any hope of investment coming to their shores. It sucks, but it massively contributed to Ireland crawling out of desperate poverty. And we never did anything sustainable with that good fortune, to say nothing of being too scared of them leaving to not reset the tax rate to something fairer now that we have other benefits for MNCs beyond low taxes (eg: we’re one of the most well educated countries in the world now). If US giants leave Ireland, there’s gonna be a shitton of unemployed people and we don’t have anywhere internally for them to take their expertise.

            Edit: None of this, BTW, says the EU shouldn’t smack them hard as a counter. Out government has fucked us with decades of “ah sure it’ll be grand”. No reason the whole EU should be held back just for us.

            The EU will be held back in this because those same corps have immense political weight more than anything tbh.

      • Taldan@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        If there’s one thing we’ve learned from tariffs, companies are surprisingly willing to eat extra costs in the short-term, and tariffs taxes are taken much closer to the end consumer