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Comment by ArkanExplorer | Hacker News Reader

As a creator, relying on these platforms is problematic because they are the #1 target for Government taxation. Depending on the country, 20% of customer spend is swallowed up immediately by sales taxes. Another 30% is potentially swallowed up by Google and Apple.

The solution is really to go direct-to-consumer, through things like Crowdfunding (unfortunately Patreon now charges VAT). Though of course this adds a lot of overhead.

Alternatively, petition Governments to be leaner, and to increase retirement ages to 70 (pensions are the single major and fastest increasing Government expense), and to lower taxes (including sales taxes) with the savings.

Pressure on Google and Apple (via regulation) to reduce commissions is another avenue.

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I was thinking that musicians could create a platform themselves and avoid the parasites but at this moment you still have the mobile store parasites that will tax you even more for each sale so before musicians can do soemthing about it we need to fix the mobile app stores or make the PWA music apps have same features as native ones(I have a feeling that Google and Apple will fight hard against losing this big source of money)

is that really the problem here??? i would think spotify uses its market dominance to drive down what they give back to the artists. also, evading tax is not a good idea. it's there for a reason.

Working till 70? Gosh I don't think that's realistic

This is already the case in some countries. For eg, the Netherlands revises the retirement age every year, and is currently at 68yrs.

The public suspicion is that they do this to avoid paying pension, most of which has been squandered by the government.

Going after the pensions is probably the single quickest way to find yourself unelected. Old people vote, and there are a lot of them.

Also direct-to-consumer hardly absolves you from following tax law. I agree that sales tax is bad, but only because it is regressive and disproportionately taxes the poor. Raise income taxes and abolish sales tax.

Thats the stupidest idea ever. No thank you. I do not want to work till 70 and I am sure no one else does either.

VAT is there for everyone, you can't avoid it because you are a 'creator' thats insane.

>The solution is really to go direct-to-consumer

How do you go direct to consumer without collecting VAT (while not breaking tax laws)?

International sales are counted as exports (not subject to VAT) and domestic sales thresholds for VAT are typically $80,000+/year

Of course, this varies by country, but its possible to incorporate your business in a country where this is the case.

The thing about exports is that they're also imports - and imports are subject to VAT. So if I buy something internationally, I need to declare it and then pay VAT on it.

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