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marceldegraaf | 11 months ago

VAT is not a "sneaky backdoor tax", it's imposed on all goods, regardless of where they're produced or imported from.

DMA (and similarly, GDPR) are enforced in EU countries just as much. It's just that the US tends to have more gigantic tech companies that do shady things with user data. Apparently the US doesn't care, but the EU actually does, and so it enforces its laws.

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jbverschoor|11 months ago

If anything is sneaky, it's the way how the in US you never see salestax until you're about to pay :D

pembrook|11 months ago

We’re talking many 10s of billions in “fines” specifically levied against US tech firms where there is no EU competitor.

I don’t necessarily disagree with all of the laws themselves (some are incompetent EU risk aversion, some are good protections) but given the massive never ending fines being applied in bad faith and constantly moving goalposts it is indeed a defacto tariff on US tech firms.

jonathanstrange|11 months ago

The fines are not imposed in bad faith, they're imposed for actual, provable violations of the law. Companies who do not violate the law are not fined. Complaining about fines is another way of saying "We'd like to trade in the EU while violating EU laws that every EU company also has to adhere to."

0xy|11 months ago

DMA is applied equally, you say. How interesting! Can you link me to the examples of the EU going after EU companies for DMA violations? I couldn't find a single one. Not a single case, ever.

The EU wanted to fine Google $35,000,000,000 under DMA. That's a backdoor tax. No European tech company faces this scrutiny. Never have, never will -- because the DMA is a tax on the United States.

It's also interesting that the Google and Meta DMA fines are expected to land in the next week. What a timing coincidence, almost like it's retaliatory (as many articles have suggested).

echoangle|11 months ago

Maybe the companies from the EU just didn’t violate the law? How does enforcement prove that it’s a tax?