jbeam

“The Devil Went Down to Georgia” by Charlie Daniels

I bet they are happy. It means ICE won't harass you.

The vast majority of high school sports teams aren't coming anywhere close to a profit. Your experience is unusual, which answers your question:

> why do people constantly ignore this.

I’m not sure why you won’t acknowledge that a tax that affects domestic and foreign companies equally is not protectionist. But here we are.

I’m not saying that taxes don’t have an impact on the economy, or the business environment, or growth, or profits…of course they do! Maybe the tax will lower demand which makes investment less appealing, and so less investment from Americans happens as a result. But there's also less investment from the Europeans in that case! And most of all, it has nothing to do with the competitiveness of American products in the European market, because the European products face the same tax. VAT does not distort the relative price between European and foreign products.

If you want to say that tax revenue is used for subsidies that are anticompetitive — well money is fungible, you can’t blame that specifically on VAT revenue, and you should be making an argument against subsidies, not the VAT. But then you will need to address the many ways in which the US subsidizes its own industries.

Have a good day!

My place hasn’t changed at all. Everything I’ve said is internally consistent. You are welcome to view any form of taxation as an impediment to “free trade” but that’s not how competition works. Feel free to continue believing that taxation is inherently protectionist, I’ll leave it at that.

I’m saying the VAT is not protectionist.

How is it protectionist if the European companies also pay it?

You are arguing about rules that apply to all companies competing in Europe and then extrapolating that to say that “American companies competing in Europe” are mistreated.

American companies pay VAT in Europe. European companies pay VAT in Europe.

American companies do not pay VAT in in the US. European companies do not pay VAT in the US.

American companies pay sales tax in the US. European companies pay sales tax in the US.

1) EU businesses have to deal with complicated sales tax arrangements that vary by state and municipality.

2) EU businesses have to operate in their own environment and also face the VAT. There is no protectionism here. The playing field with respect to VAT is balanced, regardless of which side of the pond is (...was) an easier business environment to operate in.

>That's another way of saying you don't think there should be reforms. It won't happen.

Because the people's representatives will get in the way? The pesky checks and balances of democracy?

It wasn't private not too long ago

They don’t have confidence. The site has been breaking down. It is indeed disrespectful to the user.