France: Tax Google To Fund The Arts?

IBD's Capital Hill ^ | 1/7/2010 | Ed Carson

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A new French report says the government should tax the online ad revenue of Google (GOOG) , Facebook and other Internet portals to support the arts:

The report, handed to Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand on Wednesday, says Google and other Internet portals should be slapped with a new tax on their online ad revenues in France to fund the development of legal outlets for buying books, movies and especially music on the Internet.

[scooby321]

Sounds good to me. Lets those progressives at Google pay up.

[max americana]

Exactly. Let the company who lent their advisers to the Obowma campaign pony up the $$$$. Tax them til’ they drop.

[DieHard the Hunter]

I shed no tears for the so-called “entertainment industry”. It produces nothing of lasting instinsic value and is grossly over-compensated for what it does produce.

Google, the Internet, and modern technology have brought about a much-needed change to that unsustainable business model.

Should Google be taxed for that? Perhaps. But good luck trying.

[a fool in paradise]

Think they will give me a grant to put a replica of the Eiffel Tower in a jar of urine?

[libh8er]

I am all for it. Confiscate three quarters of Eric Schmidt’s annual compensation .

[Brookhaven]

The obvious question is how?

Does google have offices in France? Do they have any type of physical presence in France?

What are the French going to do, send a tax bill to an office in California? Do they think a USA court will force a California company to pay taxes in France?

[sionnsar]

Sounds good to me. Lets those progressives at Google pay up.

When they came for the Googleites...

[libh8er]

It produces nothing of lasting instinsic value and is grossly over-compensated for what it does produce.

Sorry, will have to disagree with you there. A tiny tiny fraction of movies/shows do have lasting value. They are the classics and they will live forever. But again, it's a very small fraction of the junk that comes out of the industry. And also, it's people who decide what has value to them.

As for over compensation, there is no such thing in a free society. In a capitalist system wealth is acquired, not given, and you are free to acquire as much of it as you want provided people are giving it to you of their free will. But you could say that govt is vastly over compensated for what it does, which is mostly nothing.

[Myrddin]

Shortly after France attempts this, the French internet users start getting "Connection refused" messages from Google as the routers reject connections from France. It's not your money to steal froggies. Piss off.

[DieHard the Hunter]

> As for over compensation, there is no such thing in a free society. In a capitalist system wealth is acquired, not given, and you are free to acquire as much of it as you want provided people are giving it to you of their free will.

I have an issue with that. Jobs like “Fireman” or “Nurse” produce outputs of much greater value (extrinsic and intrinsic) than do actors — who produce nothing tangible.

The former saves lives, the latter lives in a world of pretend, and helps us to do the same.

A welder welds iron plates onto ocean liners, which carry goods to market. A pop star sings — is essentially a minstrel — and produces noting of value beyond a pleasant (or maybe even not-so-pleasant) noise.

I believe “Entertainment” is one of the chief causes of the decline of our Western Civilization. When we were producing things of lasting value, we were strong. When we began producing “bread-and-circuses” like the Romans eventually did, we could mark our civilization’s decline from that date.