IRD confirms the obvious

Hamish Rutherford at Stuff reports:

New Zealand has no power to ensure internet giants like Facebook and Google pay more tax, according to an IRD report.

The new report appears to back Revenue Minister Peter Dunne’s claim that New Zealand cannot solve corporate tax loopholes alone, arguing that even law changes would be overridden by international treaties.

Of course it does. NZ simply has no power to tax overseas corporates. If I buy a book from Amazon, can the Govt force Amazon to pay tax in NZ? Of course not.

The issue of tax rates on international companies, especially in the technology sector, has hit headlines since it emerged Facebook paid less than $14,500 in New Zealand last year, or less than 1 cent for every one of its 2.2 million Kiwi users.

That’s a silly comparison. You don’t tax firms on their number of users. You tax them on their profits. It is even sillier when you consider Facebook does not charge a user fee.