France plans a €0.055-per-gigabyte download tax on content providers
France is getting download tax for content providers (€0.055/GB)
France is moving toward a tax of €0.055 per gigabyte on content providers, framed as making foreign internet businesses pay for the infrastructure they use. Hacker News commenters pick it apart: the networks are private and already paid for by subscribers, the charge would just be passed to consumers, and it rewards bloated pages while punishing better compression. One commenter calculates that a $2.07/GB version could erase the entire US federal deficit.
Haha, making better compression algorithms is a detriment to society, I love it. Finally. Getting those bastard HEVC devs behind bars is a lifelong dream of mine.
- malloryerik
Not simply EUR 5.5 cents per GB! The tax is limited to 15% of revenue from data transmission in France, or 2% of total global revenues.
So Netflix pays max 15% of streaming revenue in France.
If you and I start a streaming service only in France, we pay a max 2% of streaming revenue in France (because that's the only place where we stream). So there's potentially a protectionist element. But note that you and I could do our France-only service from anywhere and still be capped at 2%, according to the law as I understand it (not a lawyer).
> « La taxe sur les producteurs de données numériques fait l’objet d’un plafonnement correspondant au maximum à 15 % du chiffre d’affaires réalisé en France par l’émetteur ou à 2 % de son chiffre d’affaires total. [1]
"The tax on digital service producers has a ceiling that corresponds to a maximum of 15% of France-based revenue by the transmitter or 2% of its total revenue (my translation)."
[1] https://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/dyn/17/amendements/3210A/...
- bko
It's in incredible how hostile this tax is but I have to give them credit. They just see something that's productive and valuable and they just see money they can extort from people.
No justification, like gasoline tax, which is used to fix the roads and fund green technology. Or tax on stock buybacks which have questionable value in society. Or carbon tax.
Just see something people do and tax it.
- baxtr
I wonder if this got solved anywhere yet: how do you get politicians that actually want to save money instead of raising taxes or creating new types of taxes?
I understand that it’s way easier and quicker to do the latter instead of saving.
That’s the reason they do it in the first place.
I just wonder if there is a way to incentivize them to save instead. Maybe some country was successful at one point in time.
- Rexxar
This is not a definitive vote, there is few reason to think it will be adopted in the final budget law as the government and Senate will be probably against this amendment. Additionally it's expected the budget law will be globally rejected by assembly itself as there is no clear majority at the moment.
- stephc_int13
This was a proposal, and it was rejected. Not an actual tax or law.