this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2025
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Well... Taxes are not unified, trade policy is supposed to be. So this is kinda gray area as it is a tax affecting trade specifically. But VAT kinda gives the precedence that countries can tax foreign company business.
Yeah but my understanding was that an important part of the EU is the negotiation of trade deals that regulate tariffs, and that the countries more or less gave their sovereignty in that area to the EU. Maybe I was mistaken?
Again, what is the difference between a tariff and a tax? Tariffs don't apply to domestic companies, while taxes do. EU controls tarrifs, but not taxes. This tax technically applies to all companies, domestic or foreign above certain revenue, although in reality, there are no domestic companies it would affect.
So it is a tax, not a tariff by a technicality. It may even be the case that a court will strike this law down, saying they can't pretend it is a tax when it is clearly meant to tax only foreign tech giants.