The ‘legal’ and ‘right’ amount of tax are one and the same. If politicians intended for their tax laws to extract more money than business legally have to pay it simply means the tax laws are not strong enough to ensure the desired result. That’s for politicians to rectify by making changes to tax laws.
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Dutch Regulator Says Apple Shouldn't Force Dating Apps to Offer Separate App for Alternative Payments
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You either don't know what a totalitarian government is or you don't know anything about The Netherlands. Either way, it appears you don't know much.
First of all, good will does not mean what you think it means. Doing the right thing does not automatically mean you receive good will.
Second, that subset of developers who are never satisfied aren't the problem anyway. You can't do anything about them. The bigger issue is that all these regulatory issues are coming down on Apple not because regulators have an axe to grind against Apple, but because Apple simultaneously:
A) acts as the sole gatekeeper and rule maker for the app store
B) competes with several companies and apps in the app store
C) has chose a profit maximization strategy for the App Store
Point C is how Apple has brought all this upon themselves.
For Apple's sake, I hope they realize which way the wind is blowing and make proactive changes to address their model's shortcomings before uninformed regulators regulate the exclusive App Store out of existence.
But that’s my point, what regulators decide should happen wont be influenced by Apple’s past, present or future behaviour. Apple will continue to do point A, B and C as far as legally possible. Regulation should be designed to establish the new parameters in which companies must operate but beyond that those businesses should be able to freely choose how to structure things.
A certain way of doing business isn’t any more or less problematic based on whether you make money from it or not, or how much it costs consumers. This is why even Google’s business model of giving stuff away for free is problematic and needs to be regulated.
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It’s their marketplace. Why do companies think they can circumvent it and cut out apple? It’s legitimate theft on their end.
The Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) today fined Apple an additional five million euros for allegedly failing to satisfy the requirements it set regarding alternative payment systems for dating apps. This is the fourth consecutive week that the ACM has fined Apple, with the total penalty now standing at 20 million euros.
In a press release, the ACM said that Apple's requirement that dating app providers must submit a separate app binary in the Netherlands if they wish to offer alternative payment systems is unreasonable and disadvantageous.
The ACM said it also has concerns about a number of other requirements set by Apple, such as forcing dating apps to choose between the App Store's standard in-app purchase system or alternative payment systems. The competition regulator has previously said that dating apps must be able to offer both options in the Netherlands.
The ACM will continue to fine Apple five million euros per week, up to a maximum of 50 million euros, until it feels the company has fully complied with the order.
Earlier this month, Apple provided additional details for dating apps wishing to offer alternative payment systems in the Netherlands, including that it will charge a 27% commission on purchases made in dating apps that use alternative payment systems.
Apple has appealed the ACM's order, arguing that alternative payment systems in the App Store pose privacy and security risks for customers. Apple also said it would be unable to assist customers with refund requests, subscription management, and other issues encountered when purchasing digital goods and services through alternative systems.
Article Link: Dutch Regulator Says Apple Shouldn't Force Dating Apps to Offer Separate App for Alternative Payments
No they are not one and the same and it's obvious to see your defending the use of loopholes and putting the blame on politicians. The blame is squarely at the foot of those who refuse to pay the correct amount of tax. The tax loopholes are legal but they are not ethical or moraly right, hence why when businesses are questioned about the ethical use of tax havens all of them always respond with 'we pay the 'legal' amount of tax'. Amazon is the number one company who has used that excuse many many times when being contronted by EU regulators. Apple got away with it by making sure they had a tax agreement in place which is why the EU lost it's tax case against them.
I bet your local charity shop pays more in taxes than Amazon does. The question always boils down to this, what's more important to a person when they disscuss such topics, ethics and morals or legalitity?
The ‘right’ or ‘correct’ amount of tax to pay is what is legally required. Politicians write the laws that determine that.
Whats ‘morally’ right is entirely subjective and not part of this discussion. We are talking about the ‘right’ amount of tax a business should pay, I.e., what is legally required.
In my view businesses should ‘morally’ pay enough in tax so that everyone gets a basic level of income, no one has to wait more than a few weeks for NHS treatment and no one should be homeless. But what I ‘morally’ think is the right amount of tax a business should pay would be the average American‘s idea of socialist hell and would ‘morally‘ be far too much tax for them to pay.
Actually, the question about morals and ethics being used in this discussion is way more important than you think it is because a person's morals and ethics determines their responses and replies towards Apple and the way it conducts it's business. It is morally and ethically right the way Apple is going about treating dutch app developers in how they want to develope their dating apps? hell no. Is it morally and ethically right that Apple should only pay 0.000000019% business rate (i think that was the tax percentage in the EU dispute case) where as everyone else has to pay the normal amount? hell no. But is both legal, yes. Just because something is legal does not mean it's right. This is probably subjective too because not everyone see's eye to eye on the law.
It is subjective because I think Apple are morally right in the way they are treating those app developers.
But then this is why it’s pointless having a discussion along those lines. We should be focusing on the facts.
Except it’s not a 27% ‘surcharge’ for 3rd party payments.. it’s the normal tarif for selling in the appstore, minus the 3% they charge to process a payment.
They get paid the developers fee already ????
Take a longgggg hard look at what you wrote here, they paid into it with the dev fee but they aren’t paying into, what about this are you people intentionally skipping?
The other theory is you guys are making up scenarios in your head to justify defending Apple, nothing more ?
Jesus Christ, Apple is billion dollar company, they aren’t petty like you and others. They aren’t going to call out anyone, they aren’t going to pull out of the country, they aren’t going to….etc…just stop with the petty ******** ?
Yes they do! It seems some people here keep forgetting that.
It's because the Apple defenders know they are on a losing battle here so they are coming up with all sorts of theories, scenerios and idea's to try an make it look like to others that they are winning the argument. They are not.
They DO CHARGE A YEARLY DEVELOPER FEE ….
Apple defenders? Apple critics? Never the Twain shall meet. In the end what winds up happening won’t be what anybody can envision today. Imo.
Do you think I care if it covers the cost? Everyone including you acts like Apple isn’t being paid ANYTHING and that’s just a flat out lie ?
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