Quote:
Originally Posted by MattW
So, damn yes, we should blame the corporations. We can and should, of course, blame the politicians too, but the claim that Big Business (Amazon among them) just plays by the rules and didn't make those same rules is patently absurd.
Matt
|
As HansTWN so aptly pointed out, Amazon likely had nothing or little to do with making those rules that are at the heart of this thread -- the 3% VAT and other Luxemburg tax advantages.
Blame the EU for allowing Luxemburg (and France) to lower their VAT and not going after them hard enough. They are clamping down, but it's the EU laws which allowed Amazon and others to take advantage of the loopholes in the first place.
So at least as pertains to the main issues in this thread -- Amazon in Europe -- you are dead wrong on your insistence they are the ones who created the rules.
And even if you want to consider Amazon only in the context of the U.S., it is a relatively new company. Its success and lobbying clout is recent, so any influence it had on current domestic laws pertaining to the taxation of U.S. corporations is probably negligible or minor. Those laws existed before Amazon was born.
--Pat