[gyre007]

Europe being Europe. But more importantly, I find it a but strange the countries with growing deficits thinking that raising taxes is the right move towards improving the economic situation instead of restructuring

[logifail]

> I find it a but strange the countries with growing deficits thinking that raising taxes is the right move towards improving the economic situation instead of restructuring

Speaking of restructuring, how about we restructure the way multinationals pay taxes in Europe?

"Amazon pays no corporation tax in Europe despite €44bn sales" https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/amazon-pays-no-c...

"Facebook UK pays £29m corporation tax despite record £3.3bn sales" https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/oct/06/facebook-...

"Microsoft’s Irish subsidiary posted £220bn profit in single year [..] An Irish subsidiary of Microsoft recorded a profit of $315bn (£222bn) last year [..] The profit generated by Microsoft Round Island One is equal to nearly three-quarters of Ireland’s gross domestic product – even though the company has no employees." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/03/microsoft-iris...

[newaccount74]

Yeah, the reason that governments are introducing revenue-based taxes is because companies found a lot of loopholes to avoid paying profit-based taxes. This creates an unfair advantage of foreign companies compared to local companies, who have to pay taxes on their profits.

I wonder how they are going to game revenue based taxes?

[lifestyleguru]

> The companies paid $219bn in income tax, just 3.6% of their total revenue of more than $6tn

Meantime dividend tax for an individual in Ireland is a brutal 51%. America is such a greedy leech on Europe's body.

[qaq]

You do realize there is trade imbalance between EU and US in favor of EU. VW USA BMW USA ASML etc. do exact same thing. IF EU starts changing rules US will mirror those changes an EU will have a net loss. The MS example is about corp structure change and some wiered accounting consequences MS net profit for all of 2020 was 44 billion globally.

[victorbjorklund]

"Amazon pays no corporation tax in Europe"

You get that european companies selling in the US doesnt pay american corporate taxes right?

[swiftcoder]

Raising taxes on foreign multinationals who are profiting off your economy almost certainly is the right move.

Unlike raising taxes on your own citizenry, it has none of the usual downsides.

[Y-bar]

(As a European) I see the party Brothers Of Italy which currently hold power in Italy as a decidedly hard-line right-wing party. And just like pretty much every other right-wing party with a populist bent they promised a lot of tax cuts to get into power.

But then they realised they had to raise taxes _somewhere_ to afford everything else they wanted to do… So instead of doing a mea culpa they instead put forth this stupid law.

[squarefoot]

True, but as with every canon right wing party, beside being populist they're also strong nationalists, therefore what applies to them does not apply to us, also because local big businesses are the ones keeping those bozos in power.

[Guthur]

Because they gave up their monetary sovereignty they have very few options when it comes to funding.