Tax Row Continues Between Trump and France.

**♥ Lily ♥** · 07-30-2019, 06:14 PM

'Trump threat to tax French wine completely moronic, minister says

30th July 2019

3 hour ago

The French agriculture minister has called US President Donald Trump's threat to tax French wine "completely moronic" and "absurd".

Mr Trump made the threat last week in response to French plans to tax multinational firms like Google, Facebook and Amazon.
He also stated that the US makes better wine than the French.

In a rant on French TV, Didier Guillaume called Mr Trump's rationale "completely stupid".

"It's absurd, in terms of having a political and economic debate, to say that if you tax the 'GAFAs', I'll tax wine. It's completely moronic," Mr Guillaume told BFM TV, in reference to Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple.

"This is the third time the US president has threatened a tax, the third time in a year. We'll see if he goes through with it," he said.

"American wine is not better than French wine," he added.

Mr Trump last week accused French President Emmanuel Macron of "foolishness" after France became the first major economy to impose a tax on the companies.

French authorities argue that the firms pay little or no corporate tax in countries where they are not based, but Mr Trump has said the tax unfairly targets US tech giants.

"France just put a digital tax on our great American technology companies. If anybody taxes them, it should be their home Country, the US," Mr Trump wrote on Twitter.

"We will announce a substantial reciprocal action on Macron's foolishness shortly. I've always said American wine is better than French wine!"

The US president - who is teetotal - later said he preferred the way American wines looked.'

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-49168687

**Ayetooey** · 07-30-2019, 06:23 PM

Google, Facebook and Amazon don't pay their fair share in taxes and never have. Good on France; hope they don't back down to that oversized toddler called President.

**щрбл** · 07-30-2019, 06:32 PM

Perhaps people are fed with Google and the like evading taxes in Ireland whilst making billions $$$ off their personal data.

Do the GAFA really produce that much wealth on the continent?

Most of their R&D is probably located elsewhere, so who cares about them paying more taxes...

**frankhammer** · 07-30-2019, 06:35 PM

Originally Posted by Ayetooey

Google, Facebook and Amazon don't pay their fair share in taxes and never have. Good on France; hope they don't back down to that oversized toddler called President.

I agree on the first part. The latter wasn't needed.

**~~KMack~~** · 07-30-2019, 07:23 PM

Originally Posted by Ayetooey

Google, Facebook and Amazon don't pay their fair share in taxes and never have. Good on France; hope they don't back down to that oversized toddler called President.

French citizens/residents will pay the tax. It is a 3% tax on revenue of internet/digital platforms that have sales about X amount.
So if a roofer or restaurant owner wants to place an add on Google or Facebook (in France) the cost of the advertisement just went up 3%.
Same if you buy something on Amazon that gets delivered/used in France. These companies don't eat the tax they pass the cost ont0
the customer.

"French authorities argue that the firms pay little or no corporate tax in countries where they are not based, but Mr Trump has said the tax unfairly targets US tech giants"

If they have operations in France then yeah they get taxed in France.

**~~KMack~~** · 07-30-2019, 07:26 PM

Originally Posted by щрбл

Perhaps people are fed with Google and the like evading taxes in Ireland whilst making billions $$$ off their personal data.

Do the GAFA really produce that much wealth on the continent?

Most of their R&D is probably located elsewhere, so who cares about them paying more taxes...

How so? Lots of American corporations have operations in Ireland. They pay whatever the corporate tax rate is and employees
pay whatever the going income tax is. Don't open a google account with your real name and use a VPN.

**щрбл** · 07-30-2019, 08:16 PM

Originally Posted by KMack

How so? Lots of American corporations have operations in Ireland. They pay whatever the corporate tax rate is and employees
pay whatever the going income tax is. Don't open a google account with your real name and use a VPN.

Yes, taxes are lower in Ireland and they are what they are. However being based in Ireland allows them to operate within the rest of the European Union. I'm not stating that it is illegal in general, I'm merely pointing out the fact that it is unfair and a that a lot of people are pissed off about it. That being said, it's extremely difficult to prove exactly how much money and in which country it has been precisely earned, especially for giant companies who have entire departments dedicated to optimizing this kind of stuff...

The company for which I work forces me to make a professional email account hosted by Google. Otherwise, I don't use the Google services or any of the sort of Microsoft, Apple or Facebook. As for the privacy, it's a complicated problem, but one certainly does not need to open an account to be tracked, all it takes to be tagged is to have a contact who is already using Google.

**♥ Lily ♥** · 11-04-2019, 05:58 PM

Since 2009 French wine has dropped to fifth place in British drinkers' affections, overtaken by South Africa, as well as Australia, the United States and Italy.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodandd...-drinkers.html

I think it's important that the UK people support the distributors in our British commonwealth realm nations first, and also support America as they're an Anglo-Celtic nation and our First Ally.

British wine drinkers have been steadily put off by the high prices of French wine.