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Nah, it is a difference of entourage, in Texas every man with a gun and a banhammer has his own law, for god and glory anything goes, while here things are a bit different.
That world view. I do hope your pillows are at least fluffed twice a week. You've earned that.
I have no idea what you mean here :P
Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act
That's a law that requires foreign institutions (e.g., banks, foreign government tax agencies, etc) to send information about American citizens' assets to the IRS and potentially freeze assets if there are irregularities. To enforce this, the United States has entered into treaties and/or intergovernmental agreements with all those countries listed under #Implementation.
I also don't think the U.S. would ever enter into a treaty that would require "back taxes" on EU VAT. I don't think that's something that the EU even wants really. But it's very conceivable that, as the digital economy develops and further expands, that the EU might want parity in tax remittance and the U.S. might want "fairer" treatment of tech companies (e.g., Google, Amazon) that have a large global footprint. These interests are what lead to agreements and treaties.
Remember: EU VAT isn't a tax on Americans. It's a tax on European citizens. There's nothing punishing about it to the American economy other than some negligible administrative burdens that only the libretard pussies whine about.
Yes - nobody is disagreeing that there is a distinction between law v. enforcement capacity.
FWIW, Russia also requires foreign companies selling digital services to Russians to 1) have a legal presence in Russia and 2) remit some tax (I think.) But no provider here on LET deals with that unless it's one of the Russian hosts like Veesp or @time4vps .
However, I'm fairly confident I could cause you some hassle with HMRC in regards to your London assets whether you own them or rent. I really don't want to do it, but if you'd like to see me, I'd even be willing to make a friendly Bitcoin wager to make it exciting.
Man, I like you, your views are very different than mine, but your opinions are based on your interpretation of facts, not propaganda alone.
Because obviously I'm a physical danger to you if I don't voluntarily pay foreign taxes. God you're so dramatic sometimes, like a teenage girl obsessing over an ex boyfriend. You need a therapist. Sometimes I think you look for me under your bed at night, that's actually how you come across sometimes. People come back from war with less PTSD than you have after an hour of tickling your persecution complex on LET.
Yeah, been there.
Again with this. Look, I was told specifically that you do the macarena every night in a thong. You know I'm all about that pornhub ad revenue. I need content. No one wants to see me eat taco bell naked.
I beg to differ..
nah, there is UMB Hosting. Too many servers to have space for you too.
I was about to post a wall of text but you guys are doing just fine, so I'll add something different
in the EU it operates through a business incorporated in Latvia, therefore it should be subjected to charge/reverse charge VAT. Except it's not, but I've heard that they're gonna comply with it within this month.
this is going to be a hot topic at least for some EU business and administrative offices, more interested in certs than in services already. That's e.g. Aruba's main selling point in some areas. Both US (primarily) and EU (sort-of) PoV is: there's at least some jurisdiction on data if such data crosses my borders. Some EU entities don't want any kind of non-EU jurisdiction on their data, nor want their data/metadata sniffed and catalogued, not even for statistical purposes.
Fuck these new world savages. You have to pay taxes to the crown!
Being serious, some countries know how international law and sovereignty works and tax their own citizens instead of trying to tax a foreign entity.
No one is trying to tax a foreign entity.
Tax is levied on 'own citizens' through the VAT system that EU demands EU and non EU businesses to comply with. This is to level the playing field through the shifted palce of supply to Customer's location.
Please really do read the lengthy responses we already did in this thread. It's disrespectful of you to come and without any merit repeat the same thing.
Nearly everyone in this thread is talking about foreign companies collecting taxes from EU citizens and then shipping the money to the EU. That is exactly what it means to tax a foreign entity. It means I increase my prices on a subset of customers and collect money on their behalf, to be rendered to their government at a later date. This is exactly what Walmart does to me to pay local taxes, no one dares say "Walmart isn't taxed, you are." It's not a reasonable distinction. Walmart is collecting my money because they are expected (aka they "owe") to pay taxes to the government. If they don't, it's them who has to pay up, not me. That's exactly the same thing.
If it's not taxing a foreign entity, then the foreign entity would have no amount due according to their governemnt, the customer would be expected to withhold their own taxes and pay it to their government. Who they look at as having the burden for collecting and paying the taxes, and who they would fine for not paying them, is effectively who they are taxing. Company taxes customer, government taxes company to collect customer's taxes. Fairly standard taxation agreement.
@Jarland you're not increasing the price with VAT.
If you take a look at any EU issued invoice with VAT you'd see that VAT is always separated as the money that goes to the goverment. The net price is what you charge, the x% is variable that goes to the government through your supplier.
Then the other side, if they have right to do it, can claim this VAT back (B2B if other entity registered on VAT) or not (B2C and tiny business).
Equally a payslip to an employee also has your pay, as well as all the taxes that you paid through your employer
Tax is levied on the citizens, through this particular mechanism that we use in Europe.
Any other example, and I'd let this go. Wal-Mart is notorious for building on indian land to avoid paying taxes. So, this isn't much more applicable than Mao's self-defenestration at any possible moment you might be involved.
That's mental gymnastics. Invoice is larger = increased amount paid = increased price. Itemization and budgeting are just the details of how and why.
Which equals out to a larger total sum paid than if that value is not added at all. Therefore the customer's out of pocket amount increases. Therefore the price to keep their service with you has increased as compared to prior to this taxation. If gas is $1 per gallon and tax is $1 per gallon, gas is $2 per gallon because that's what I have to pay to fill up my car. Everything else is semantics.
If the company fails to pay my taxes to the government, I am held liable and not my company. Very key thing here. Who is burdened if the taxes are not paid? Who is penalized for it? Whoever that is, they are the ones the government is really taxing.
My local Walmart collects sales tax from me at checkout, holds it, and pays it to the government. If they don't, they are held liable for not paying those taxes and not me. This is 100% relevant, how you feel about Indian land and corporate taxes is what is actually not applicable :P
Sorry, but if you think I'm disrespectful, what should I say about your answer? Calm down son...
There is no international consensus about this, there is current no international treaty forcing USA(and virtually every other country) entities to abide to EU vat laws.
I do understand that you and a lot of EU based business are mad, and I do think you are right, a business that doesn't charge vat can deliver slightly better price than you do. And that doesn't change the fact that EU is trying to make a foreign entity follow a law that they don't have to abide to.
Like I said in my "disrespectful" message, some countries do know what sovereignty is and make its own citizens pay vat when buying services/goods from foreign countries.
Not always, as VAT can be claimed back, and VERY often is in B2B transactions.
Can you claim Sales Tax back in the US? Maybe that's where the different approach comes from.
I'm perfectly fine here. You're coming here repeating slogans with no merit, whereas some here spent a significant amount of time explaining stuff in detail, hence I feel it's disrespectful to those participants.
It's not a tit-for-tat, and you know this. You're not allowed to charge members of the tribe on tribal land, but you are if it is outside of tribal land. It's also perfectly legal to charge non-members of the tribe taxes. Who is ensuring Wal-Mart does not charge the landowners, and they do others? Who is to say that all of that is given to the government? Pretty much nobody. But, that's a diatribe for another thread.
@jarland's certainly right that from an end-customer's perspective, we compare prices according to what we have to pay. If I think about buying a VPS from RamNode, I consider the price + VAT; if I think about buying a VPS from BuyVM, I consider the price as advertised, because BuyVM doesn't (yet) charge EU residents VAT.
Now, you may say that I'm civically irresponsible for preferring a price without VAT, but in reality, I just prefer a lower price, other things being equal. If the lower price happens to include VAT as well, no problem, I don't go out of way not to pay VAT, but -- other things being equal -- I just prefer a lower price.
In any case, just to show that I'm not going out of my way to avoid paying VAT, I bought four VPSes last weekend:
On the other hand, for people at Amazon, Microsoft, Linode and the like which have big business outside US, the situation is completely different, they have to play the tax collector, because, while they might have arguments not to do it in a court of law, EU can continue to amend the laws within EU which will gradually exclude them from the local market and there are some players which can grow to take their place OR they will have to incorporate here if not already and "do the dutiful". No matter the efforts Putin and his friend trump put into dismantling EU, it wont happen, not after everyone will see how the wolves circling UK will start feasting. Even without UK, EU is a big market and will grow, big actors cannot afford to stay out and they are the ones the EU tax man is after.
Certainly changed days, 10-15 years ago hosting in the EU regardless of your needs was only for those with a top budget, USA was where everything was hosted.
But yeah fuck em all now :P
remember the information highway times... Yeah, things changed, now US tries to enforce monopolies indian style, so you get the idea where will this go.
Uncle started to host in US, iperweb was initially an US company, when we needed ARIN IPs, it only needed reactivated, it was there since 1997, iirc, it looked perfectly legit, although dormant for many years while he developed his italian business.
I love paying taxes and VAT btw :-)
They help us (EU) to have a generally higher living standard than US for example.
Certainly does not come cheap, but it's worth it.
Glad to hear that you've legislated out the pains of life
Yes it's pretty cool that governments can agree on something, and increase the living standards by making everyone contribute.
We Europeans are pretty awesome