Tag: tax

A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization

Remote work made digital nomads possible. The pandemic made them essential

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This story is part of  The Road Ahead , a series that examines the future of travel and how we’ll experience the world after the pandemic. In April, a radio DJ, a marine ecologist, a water polo player, and a migrant studies scholar flew to idyllic Dubrovnik, a seaside city in Croatia with a vast labyrinth of medieval architecture famed for composing the scenery of the cult fantasy TV show Game of Thrones . Hailing from Finland, Japan, and the United States, the travelers were among 10 lucky winners of a first-of-its-kind  digital nomad residency contest, for which the prize was a month-long stay in the lush “Pearl of the Adriatic” with complimentary meals and lodging. The residents ate, drank, networked, and day-tripped to the cliffs of Konavle—home of 2020’s most beautiful beach in Europe—and the island of Mljet, which is shrouded in dense forest that features exciting hazards like venomous snakes and wild mongooses. Ostensibly, they were there to brainstorm how to design Dubrovnik as a nomad-friendly city in the digital age. But for Croatia, the real goal was to market its own image away from a “holiday playground,” as program director Tanja Polegubic calls it, into a serious long-term destination for remote workers. You could think of it as striking while the iron is hot—or really, while Croatia is hot: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the country saw an influx of workers fleeing expensive cities in western Europe. “Asia wasn’t an option, so a lot of people were looking to the Balkans because the further east you go, it’s a lot cheaper,” Polegubic says. Croatia’s not alone: Countries spanning the Caribbean isle to the Arabian desert are suddenly pivoting to court digital nomads in the post-coronavirus era, dangling everything from free vaccines, to tax breaks, to the chance to live in tropical paradise. Call it a new global arms race, where the weapon in question is an arsenal of highly skilled remote workers—ones that were trapped in their homes during the pandemic, but could now be untethered by it from their offices forever. With a new class of human capital up for grabs, countries are looking to stockpile talent, and digital nomads are living a new reality: They’ve become a hot commodity. COVID-19 was an existential crisis: For the first time, a community built around having no fixed address was forced to shelter in place.” Digital nomads, ironically, are easy to locate. By nature of their lifestyle, many have built careers on the internet: sharing snapshots of dreamy landscapes spun from coconut palm trees and rainbow-colored villas, hosting blogs that detail the ins and outs of life perpetually on the road. Read More …

The five best arguments that Apple’s App Store is a monopoly

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Apple and Google testified in front of the Senate Judiciary’s Antitrust Subcommittee Wednesday, and it’s fair to say the committee members came with their A game and that Apple walked away the biggest loser. At issue are the strict rules Apple imposes on app developers for the privilege of being listed in the App Store, which is virtually the only way developers can access the huge worldwide market of iPhone users. Google may be somewhat less in the antitrust crosshairs because it allows Android users to side-load apps from other marketplaces and websites. But both Apple and Google require many developers to use their respective marketplaces’ own proprietary payment systems to sell their apps, and they charge the developers up to 30% to do so. Both Democrats and Republicans in the hearing seemed surprised at that high toll and wondered out loud whether it would be so high if the two main app stores faced more competition. The subcommittee members had clearly coordinated their efforts before the hearing and presented Apple with a wide-ranging, and nonoverlapping, set of informed and relevant questions. However, the hearing was especially fiery because some big-name app developers who have a beef with the app stores—Spotify, Tile, and Tinder’s parent, Match Group—were sitting at the witness table too. Some of the best arguments against Apple’s App Store policies came from them. Spotify’s App Store blues Case in point: Spotify’s lawyer Horacio Gutierrez pointed out that not only is his company required to use Apple’s payment system (and pay the “Apple tax”), but the music app is also prohibited from directing users of its free iOS app to online promotions offering three months of Spotify Premium for 99¢. Gutierrez called this a “gag order.” Spotify had the sympathy of Democrat Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee, even before the hearing. “[Telling people] they can get a better deal [on an app] on a website, when the companies . . . on the app store are banned from doing that, that’s pretty outrageous,” Klobuchar told me on the phone Tuesday night. Spotify has a particularly interesting viewpoint because it competes directly with Apple’s own Music service, which naturally gets more visibility in the App Store. Klobuchar called this “self-preferencing.” Gutierrez said Apple had threatened retaliation against Spotify and in some cases carried it out. He claimed Apple told Spotify straight out that it would not promote the Spotify app and forced Spotify to wait for months for app-upgrade approvals. Read More …

Amy Klobuchar: Apple, Google app store rules are “pretty outrageous”

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Executives from Apple and Google will testify in front of Congress on Wednesday, and are likely to face tough questioning about the way they manage their respective app stores. Apple’s chief compliance officer Kyle Andeer and Google’s senior director of government affairs Wilson White will appear in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee, which is chaired by Democrat Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. The hearing  comes as Congress readies legislation that could revamp antitrust law to better deal with 21st century monopolies, and better arm government agencies to enforce the law. The main topic of discussion will be the revenue sharing requirement imposed by the app stores on developers. Larger developers must pay 30% of their app or subscription revenue to Apple or Google during the first year of inclusion in their respective app stores. Many developers, whether they’ll say so publicly or not, think the 30% fee is onerous. Some have spoken out, including the music app developer Spotify, the dating app developer Match Group, and the Bluetooth tracker app developer Tile–and all will testify Wednesday. They’ll likely find some sympathetic ears on the other side of the room. You can’t argue that telling consumers they can get a better deal another way somehow jeopardizes security.” Sen. Amy Klobuchar “The 15% to 30% tax is such a whopping amount of money that the companies are charged for advertising on the app store,” Klobuchar told me on Tuesday evening. “The thing that I noticed myself was, like other consumers, I sometimes wonder why I can’t get that app on the app store–what’s wrong with that company? I never understood it until I looked at this [app store issue], and it’s because they don’t want to pay that amount of money.” Klobuchar says she hopes hopes her committee can learn some things about the app stores and the app economy by hearing both sides of the debate. But, she said, it’s also important that the public learn about the business practices of Apple and Google. She zeroes in on the fact that Apple makes it very hard for developers to avoid using its In-App Payment system, and paying the 15% to 30% fee. Read More …

The devastating cost of the Big Tech billionaires’ immense wealth

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COVID-19 was a boon for the superrich. There are few better examples than the founders, CEOs, and spouses of the five Big Tech giants: Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Mackenzie Scott, Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and Apple’s Tim Cook and Laurene Powell Jobs. I call them the tech barons. The recently released Forbes World’s Billionaires List includes some shocking figures about our tech overlords. At the start of 2020, the tech barons were collectively worth $419 billion. A year later, their wealth had soared to $651 billion—a 56% increase. The hoarding of that wealth harms us all: It distributes resources away from those who need it most and, by allowing the tech barons to influence government policy, corrodes democratic society. Most of us will never grow our wealth by 56% in a year. But wealth begets wealth Read More …

‘Black Panther 2’ is supposed to film in Georgia. Why are Disney and Marvel so quiet?

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Earlier this week, two prominent Black filmmakers took a stand against Georgia’s new, restrictive voting laws by pulling their upcoming project out of the state. Emancipation , a slave drama starring Will Smith and directed by Antoine Fuqua for Apple TV, will no longer be shooting in the Peach State. “At this moment in time, the Nation is coming to terms with its history and is attempting to eliminate vestiges of institutional racism to achieve true racial justice,” Fuqua and Smith said in a joint statement . “We cannot in good conscience provide economic support to a government that enacts regressive voting laws that are designed to restrict voter access.” The laws , signed by Republican governor Brian Kemp in the wake of Georgia’s Democratic victories in the presidential and Senate elections, disproportionately restrict voting access for Black and poor voters through things such as limiting the number of ballot drop boxes and narrowing the window to request an absentee ballot. The backlash from Democrats has been fast and furious. President Biden called the new laws   “un-American” and “sick,” equating them to “Jim Crow in the 21st century.” Fuqua and Smith aren’t the only ones in Hollywood who have taken a stand against the laws, but they are an overwhelming minority. With the exception of a few other voices, including Ford vs. Ferrari director James Mangold and actor Mark Hamill, who have vowed not to film in Georgia—one of the biggest production hubs in the country due to generous tax incentives and an abundance of sound stages—for the most part Hollywood has remained mum on the subject. A few conglomerates, such as Comcast (owner of NBCUniversal), AT&T (owner of WarnerMedia), and Viacom have expressed their unhappiness over the legislation but have stopped short of saying they would not film in the state. AT&T said that it was working with members of the Atlanta and Georgia chambers of commerce to support “policies that promote accessible and secure voting while also upholding election integrity and transparency.” (In Atlanta, local business behemoths Coca-Cola and Delta were faster to take strong stands against the laws, though under public pressure and with predictable backlash.) Other broad-ish efforts have included an open letter published in the New York Times and Washington Post on Wednesday that called out efforts to restrict voting access but did not name Georgia specifically. The letter was signed by companies including Amazon, Netflix and Apple, and individuals such as J.J. Abrams, Shonda Rhimes and Samuel L. Jackson. But several weeks into the controversy, neither Disney nor its Marvel division, which are reportedly ramping up to start shooting one of the most high-profile projects of the year in Georgia in July, have made a public statement—and that silence is increasingly deafening. That project would be Black Panther 2 , the follow-up to the 2018 blockbuster. Buzz about the film’s shoot increased with the news of Emancipation ‘s relocation on Monday. Here is yet another high-profile Hollywood production steeped in racial justice themes and with a virtually all-Black cast, and one with significantly more global awareness. If any single project could serve as a platform for Hollywood’s condemnation about what’s going on in Georgia, it’s the Marvel tentpole Read More …