Taxation is done by the individual member states, not the EU. Germany could impose a digital services tax if they wanted to, without needing permission from the EU to do so.
Taxation is done by the individual member states… for now.
Due to the creation of EU debt first for COVID, then for Ukraine the EU is going to need some way of paying it back sooner or later. Expect to see some Europeans lose their shit over the next decade at the inevitable federalization this will cause. Excellent news for federalists though.
Even if at some point the EU will be given the power of taxation (which I’m not yet seeing as an inevitability at this point), that doesn’t automatically mean that that power will be stripped from the individual member states.
We only need to look at the US as an example of a federation where both the federal government and the states have the power of taxation. It wouldn’t be unprecedented.
If Germany wants to tax digital services (meaning all digital services and not just American digital services) that is not a tariff. Germany is free to tax digital services as long at it doesn’t directly target US digital services.
Edit: This comment is a response to the initial text before being edited.
No problem. We all misinterpret things from time to time.
I believe it is important that we don’t blindly accept Trump’s framing that this is a tariff, because that is exactly the framing Trump used to justify his “retaliatory” tariffs from last year.
Taxation is done by the individual member states, not the EU. Germany could impose a digital services tax if they wanted to, without needing permission from the EU to do so.
Taxation is done by the individual member states… for now.
Due to the creation of EU debt first for COVID, then for Ukraine the EU is going to need some way of paying it back sooner or later. Expect to see some Europeans lose their shit over the next decade at the inevitable federalization this will cause. Excellent news for federalists though.
Even if at some point the EU will be given the power of taxation (which I’m not yet seeing as an inevitability at this point), that doesn’t automatically mean that that power will be stripped from the individual member states.
We only need to look at the US as an example of a federation where both the federal government and the states have the power of taxation. It wouldn’t be unprecedented.
You’re 100% correct. I should have written “Taxation is only done by the individual member states”, quite right.
If it is a TAX specifically on US services, it is a tariff.
But I can see they UK has designed it to go equally for everybody:
IMO we should have a TAX specifically on US tech companies. So they would be easier to replace with European services.
Taxation is not a tariff.
If Germany wants to tax digital services (meaning all digital services and not just American digital services) that is not a tariff. Germany is free to tax digital services as long at it doesn’t directly target US digital services.
Edit: This comment is a response to the initial text before being edited.
Sorry I made a pretty significant edit. Exactly because I found out that the way UK designed it, it is not a tariff.
No problem. We all misinterpret things from time to time.
I believe it is important that we don’t blindly accept Trump’s framing that this is a tariff, because that is exactly the framing Trump used to justify his “retaliatory” tariffs from last year.