• 12 Posts
  • 1.15K Comments
Joined 2 years ago
Cake day: June 21st, 2023
  • skuzztoNews@lemmy.world•EU considers tariffs on digital services Big Tech
    12·
    7 hours ago

    It’s a tax on every stage of the process, nobody “switched to it”. All for the government, that didn’t contribute to the process. That doesn’t make a train stop at my mom’s home town anymore even though their country is smaller than my state but has all the tax money. Including price in price is nothing. The SIZE is the important part. I balked at 9% sales tax in my state, used to be 6%. Yours is amplified 20% times 5. Design, execution, physical build, assembly, final product. That’s crazy.

    And why ever say “we switched to VAT”. It’s just a name. Tax, VAT, Tariff. All words. You’re probably a bot anyway.

  • skuzztoNews@lemmy.world•EU considers tariffs on digital services Big Tech
    16·
    13 hours ago

    Edit: Holy crap, so I based my initial comment on how EU Internet friends always complain about how much their iPhone or PlayStation is, so I incorrectly assumed VAT was only for foreign products to encourage purchase of domestic. No, VAT is just a fancy way of saying “sales tax” that is really high and charged everywhere. Strikethrough edits below, but leaving original text.

    So the EU, UK, and others have charged VAT for years on foreign goods, including US goods. This is a tax on foreign goods that can add hundreds of dollars/pounds/euros/etc. to the purchase of an American iPhone (made in China or India) for example.

    This whole tariff thing is dumber than something a third grader could come up with…but…these countries were already doing it themselves to others. So they should politely STFU, as they are hypocrites.

    I get having high income taxes to provide for socialized medicine and such, that’s awesome, but also a sales tax that is a quarter of the price of a thing or service, taxed just because? Even if it wasn’t made by the nation’s citizens? Even if it was?

    I’m sure it keeps EUians and UKians from going full Capitalism, but wow, especially given how much infrastructure degrades despite the funding, I recall seeing Germany cutting train routes all over across the country and small towns being cut off from them some years back and flabbergasted, knowing their high taxes go to government things…but also sales tax on top of that? 🤯

    What really sucks, is they’ll likely stay quiet about this, and join a tariff war anyways, and tack tariffs on top of VAT and their citizens will just be double-taxed. Why do UK-ians and EU-ians put up with this nonsense?

    It gets wackier too, from the EU VAT rules site (emphasis mine):

    The EU has standard rules on VAT, but these rules may be applied differently in each EU country. In most cases, you have to pay VAT on all goods and services at all stages of the supply chain including the sale to the final consumer. This includes from the beginning to the end of a production process, e.g. buying components, transport, assembly, provisions, packaging, insurance and shipping to the final consumer.

    For EU-based companies, VAT is chargeable on most sales and purchases of goods within the EU. In such cases, VAT is charged and due in the EU country where the goods are consumed by the final consumer. Likewise, VAT is charged on services at the time they are carried out in each EU country.

    VAT isn’t charged on exports of goods to countries outside the EU. In these cases, VAT is charged and due in the country of import and you don’t need to declare any VAT as an exporter. However, when exporting goods you will need to provide documentation as proof that the goods were transported outside the EU. Such proof could be provided by presenting a copy of an invoice, a transportation document or an import customs record to your tax authorities.

    List of items charged VAT (non-exhaustive):

    • Electronics (phones, computers, TVs)

    • Clothing and footwear

    • Furniture and household items

    • Cars and motorbikes

    • Fuel and energy (electricity, gas)

    • Food and beverages (standard or reduced rate depending on country)

    • Alcohol and tobacco

    • Hotel stays and accommodation

    • Restaurant meals

    • Telecom and digital services

    • Books, newspapers, and magazines (often at reduced or zero rate)

    • Transport services (like air or rail tickets, depending on country)

      VAT Rates by country (also non-exhaustive):

    • Austria: 20%​

    • Belgium: 21%​

    • Bulgaria: 20%​

    • Croatia: 25%​

    • Cyprus: 19%​

    • Czech Republic: 21%​

    • Denmark: 25%​

    • Estonia: 22%​

    • Finland: 25.5%​

    • France: 20%​

    • Germany: 19%​

    • Greece: 24%​

    • Hungary: 27%​

    • Ireland: 23%​

    • Italy: 22%​

    • Latvia: 21%​

    • Lithuania: 21%​

    • Luxembourg: 17%​

    • Malta: 18%​

    • Netherlands: 21%​

    • Poland: 23%​

    • Portugal: 23%​

    • Romania: 19%​

    • Slovakia: 23%​

    • Slovenia: 22%​

    • Spain: 21%​

    • Sweden: 25%

      Sources:

    https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/quick-charts/value-added-tax-vat-rates

    https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/taxation/vat/vat-rules-rates/index_en.htm

    https://www.globalvatcompliance.com/globalvatnews/world-countries-vat-rates-2020/

    https://www.avalara.com/vatlive/en/vat-rates/european-vat-rates.html`___`

  • skuzztoFunny@sh.itjust.works•Once-in-a-generation
    181·
    19 hours ago

    Think about it this way: They were literally the most spoiled highest quality-of-life group of humans to ever exist on Earth in any timeline.

    • Ubiquitous access to healthcare and vaccinations for longer life.
    • Access to pensions and retirement options no longer available where the employer did all the legwork to ensure they had a future post-work so they didn’t have to learn a thing about investing or retirement savings.
    • Infrastructure that was borne from the Great Depression, so they had roads, bridges, dams all built up to last their lifetime with no care about maintenance, as they figure, “oh it was always there, it will always be there,” so no money was committed to maintenance we are now having to do, freeing that money up to live like kings and queens in the short-term.
    • Easy to access jobs, homes, boats, cars with little to no education or financial acumen. Just that “walk in and hand them a resume” trope they love to perpetuate.
    • The most modern travel technology and geopolitical climate to go on vacation pretty much anywhere on the planet, and access to time to have vacation.
    • Relatively calm planetary climate so they didn’t have to worry about things like today’s weather weirding with tornadoes where they shouldn’t be, hurricanes going inland, hail everywhere, and on and on, all the while driving their 5 MPG giant SUVs all over the country while tossing their food wrappers on the side of the road.
    • Cheap (during the majority of their lives) to relocate anywhere in the US or abroad if they wanted to work or live somewhere else, or be “snowbirds” when they’re too wimpy to tolerate the winter in their home states.
    • The same geopolitical climate prevented them having to grow up in war-torn anywhere.
    • Access to any kind of entertainment imaginable any time anywhere.
    • Artificially post-world-war inflated US economy that took some decades to spin down (that “Great Again” they fap to) - which only happened because the US joined so late and had few losses ourselves. The war never happened at home, so we got out for minimal effort/casualties/infrastructure loss.
    • And they got to adult in an age of computer technology that enables them as olds to not have to drive their car, pick up food, or do any errands they don’t want to do themselves, all without having to learn any technical skills because the tech was designed for idiots.

    No human generation before or after them got to, or likely will ever, experience such a prosperous story-arc. They should consider themselves damn lucky and act like it, while supporting future generations to have a sliver of what their spoiled asses were able to enjoy.

  • skuzztoFunny@sh.itjust.works•Natural bidet
    211·
    3 days ago

    There are pit toilets up in the Rocky Mountains at parks that have a vent pipe up above them.

    Well, when the wind is blowing around 9,000+ft above sea level, (which is frequent) you get a blast of cold mountain air up your rump, like a York Peppermint Patty of freshness. It is quite an indescribable experience.

  • skuzztoNews@lemmy.world•Chaos as Trump cuts to NOAA lead to staffers receiving deluge of spam emails
    8·
    3 days ago

    That helps slightly but in the absence of radar, balloons, and satellite telemetry, it doesn’t help accuracy of forecast beyond, “it might rain here in a few hours, it might not.” Not much different in functional usefulness than looking at the trees to see if it’s going to rain.

    I have a watch with a barometric pressure sensor, it will alert me to potential maybe coming storms, but only potential maybe, not what direction, what intensity, what hail potential, what wind shear. All it knows is the air pressure is changing pretty fast. It is right maybe one in ten times. (My location tends to have very rapid weather changes, in general, however.)

    And outside of that, ground stations don’t really help to keep air traffic safely in the skies at all, lacking jet stream telemetry, which is calculated and estimated on a daily basis to figure out which sky highways flights should use. Not just passengers either, most commercial passenger airliners have a portion of their cargo hold sold to shipping (and make more money on that than the seats). USPS, other shipping companies all ship in cargo holds. Water transport would be affected as well of course, as well as rail and truck to a lesser degree due to floods/landslides/blizzards or random sideways Texas sandstorms blowing semi trucks over.

    With flights, this means fuel estimates will be off, tailwind or headwind is stronger or weaker than predicted, you’re landing at an alternate airport. This means more random turbulence and/or injuries mid-flight. More grounded flights, more flight delays. More potential for collision. Especially with neutered ATC in concert.

    It is all interconnected, and all being arbitrarily destroyed without any thought into why it all exists.

  • skuzztoNews@lemmy.world•Big brands are spending small sums on X to stay out of Musk’s crosshairs
    2·
    4 days ago

    FTA it seems:

    • American Express
    • WPP (ad agency)
    • Omnicom (ad agency)
    • Interpublic Group (ad agency)
    • Publicis (ad agency)
    • “increasing number of small brands”
    • Stagwell (ad agency) possibly, as quoted in the article as saying, “The political boycotts and things are dissipating because companies are realizing that taking one side and the other is a dangerous place to be.”

    A quick AI search for some of who uses/d those ad agencies:

    WPP:

    • HSBC
    • Rolex
    • Samsung
    • Shell Oil
    • Unilever
    • Nestlé

    Omnicom:

    • Apple
    • PepsiCo
    • McDonalds
    • Nissan
    • Pfizer
    • Unilever

    Interpublic Group (IPG):

    • American Express
    • AstraZeneca
    • GM
    • Nestlé
    • Amazon
    • L’Oréal

    Publicis:

    • Google
    • Dodge
    • Humira
    • Samsung
    • Nestlé
    • L’Oréal

    Stagwell:

    • Anheuser-Busch InBev
    • JP Morgan
    • Uber Eats
    • AT&T
    • Mastercard
  • skuzztoNews@lemmy.world•Bay Area Air Traffic Control Is Down to 1 Meteorologist After Trump's Hiring Freeze.
    27·
    7 days ago

    The cuts also affected the launching of weather balloons, less are being launched now daily, so current knowledge of the jet stream across the US will be more limited. This means daily routing of flights through the various air “lanes” gets more challenging, more unexpected air, predicted fuel burn rates will be wrong if a tailwind isn’t blowing as fast as estimated, or headwinds are stronger.

    Likely won’t increase crashes too much, but will increase turbulence, in-flight injuries, rerouting, and detour landings.

    (As well as forecasts for the ground being less accurate.)