Internationalisation... why is it so difficult?
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Well, there's more to why the US dominates the software industry than Europeans being lazy.
Nope. Lazy.
If only because it is also the biggest monolingual market
False.
EDIT: well I guess it depends on how you measure it. It's not biggest in "headcount" but it's probably biggest if you look at $$$.
and they managed to export their language successfully after WW2.
That's true, because we were the only country with our shit together.
In music and films too the US is dominating.
Yup. I thought it was pathetic when I went to New Zealand and what's on TV? Friends. Not even like "Kiwi Friends", just the exact same show you'd see on NBC. Lazy fuckers. Make your own TV shows.
Does that mean that Europe is less active?
Yup.
No - just less popular because of the patchwork of languages and legislation.
So fix yo' shit. It's not the US' fault that you've made doing business in Europe hard as shit.
And oh BTW? Somehow Microsoft manages to do business in every single European country, so I hardly see how this is even an excuse.
And consumers tend to be lazy (which I illustrate with not wanting to log on to three flavours of Amazon).
I don't see how that's even slightly relevant.
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I don't understand why they don't offer a programmed solution: sorting out the accountancy isn't difficult (because the buyer's country of residence is known) and it would be much more user-friendly for the buyer.
Here's another suggestion based on a similar issue around here. In the US, there are many sales tax rates at the state, county, and sometimes the city level. Tax laws are state specific, so if you sell to people in your own state, the seller is required to collect the proper amount of tax and submit it to the state.
Since tax laws are state-specific, there has been a long-standing behavior that if you don't have an office in a state, then you don't collect tax for that state. However, the buyer is supposed to pay that tax when they do their yearly taxes. Compliance with this rule is very low. So, companies purposely avoid having a presence in most of the states so that consumers pay less at checkout time - which turns out to be a savings for the majority that never actually pay it. "Fixing" this "inconvenience" wouldn't really fix anything, instead it would add between five and ten percent to the cost of the purchase.
So, perhaps they don't fix the problem because their customers like to deal with it on their own. And by "deal with it on their own", I mean don't pay the taxes.
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@YellowOnline said:
I don't understand why they don't offer a programmed solution: sorting out the accountancy isn't difficult (because the buyer's country of residence is known) and it would be much more user-friendly for the buyer.
Here's another suggestion based on a similar issue around here. In the US, there are many sales tax rates at the state, county, and sometimes the city level. Tax laws are state specific, so if you sell to people in your own state, the seller is required to collect the proper amount of tax and submit it to the state.
Since tax laws are state-specific, there has been a long-standing behavior that if you don't have an office in a state, then you don't collect tax for that state. However, the buyer is supposed to pay that tax when they do their yearly taxes. Compliance with this rule is very low. So, companies purposely avoid having a presence in most of the states so that consumers pay less at checkout time - which turns out to be a savings for the majority that never actually pay it. "Fixing" this "inconvenience" wouldn't really fix anything, instead it would add between five and ten percent to the cost of the purchase.
So, perhaps they don't fix the problem because their customers like to deal with it on their own. And by "deal with it on their own", I mean don't pay the taxes.
The states have tried to get the Federal government to "fix" this by making companies in the US collect sales taxes regardless of where they're located.
Last I checked, the states hadn't succeeded.
It's also an important note that even for sales that would have taxes collected, in the US the prices listed are the before-tax prices.
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However, the buyer is supposed to pay that tax when they do their yearly taxes.
This has always been a
to me -- how is a state able to tax interstate commerce? There has to be some sort of enabling federal statute for this...or is there?
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The Feds are responsible for determining how interstate commerce works. What happens now is Washington goes to California and says, "hey buddy, here's the deal: I'll collect your sales tax and you collect ours and then we just exchange big checks once a quarter". So it's an agreement between States, but it's not a Federal mandate applying to all States.
To be honest I don't think the Feds have said anything at all about the issue yet. IMO they should create a "federal minimum sales tax" (say 5%) that applies to online purchases made to one State from another. This saves Internet businesses the headache and complexity of having to keep track of complicated tax codes for thousands of counties and cities.
The obvious objection will be from States that have no sales tax at all, like Oregon. To which I say: get stuffed, Oregon!
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The obvious objection will be from States that have no sales tax at all, like Oregon. To which I say: get stuffed, Oregon!
I'd think that the complainers would be those with higher sales taxes (due to lost revenue), unless you really meant a minimum sales tax. But in that case it wouldn't reduce the complexity as you would need to know who was higher.
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It's a minimum because if the customer is in Washington and the shipper is in Washington, they'd still have to pay Washington taxes. 7.8% or whatever it is in your particular city. The feds have no/little control of taxation within a specific State.
The federal minimum is what you get if the product is shipped outside the State. It would go towards something that benefits all States, say highway funds.
Considering the current status of, "they don't get JACK" I think they'd adopt the federal minimum.
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The federal minimum is what you get if the product is shipped outside the State. It would go towards something that benefits all States, say highway funds.
I think all the states with a sales tax would object to not getting it themselves rather than the shared pool, but that is mostly because:
Considering the current status of, "they don't get JACK"
Isn't what the complainers would be comparing against. Instead they would be using their ideal (politics so reality has nothing to do with it).
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This has always been a to me -- how is a state able to tax interstate commerce? There has to be some sort of enabling federal statute for this...or is there?
Here's the weasel-wording that New York uses to justify the fact that you owe tax: http://www.tax.ny.gov/pubs_and_bulls/tg_bulletins/st/use_tax_for_individuals.htm
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The Feds are responsible for determining how interstate commerce works.
Aye, gotta love the Commerce Clause...
What happens now is Washington goes to California and says, "hey buddy, here's the deal: I'll collect your sales tax and you collect ours and then we just exchange big checks once a quarter". So it's an agreement between States, but it's not a Federal mandate applying to all States.
And that's the -- my gut says "how does that not violate the Commerce Clause?" I ought to ask the next lawyer I run into about it, really...it'd make good lunch discussion fodder, I think.
To be honest I don't think the Feds have said anything at all about the issue yet.
I haven't heard of anything besides the occasional rumbling about a bill being introduced, either...
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Here's the weasel-wording that New York uses to justify the fact that you owe tax
It's not too much different from what I've heard...but it still doesn't address the Commerce Clause question.
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Aye, gotta love the Commerce Clause...
IIRC the Feds were originally really only obligated to ensure that interstate commerce is possible. (Prevent, for example, California from banning goods from Alabama.)
Also remember that one of the first acts of the new government was getting all of the colonies/states using the same currency. The Constitution was written in an environment where between the 13 colonies, there were probably 20 different currencies.
And that's the -- my gut says "how does that not violate the Commerce Clause?" I ought to ask the next lawyer I run into about it, really...it'd make good lunch discussion fodder, I think.
- It might and perhaps the Feds just don't care enough (or don't have the resources) to do something about it,
- It might not because it's not preventing the commerce from happening altogether, just determining how it's taxed
I haven't heard of anything besides the occasional rumbling about a bill being introduced, either...
It was brought up like... 5-6 years ago, but nothing ever came of it.
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doesn't address the Commerce Clause question
Sure it does. New York simply says they are taxing the "use", not the "purchase". Now it's not a tax on commerce, just a completely inside-the-state issue of taxing things that you do.
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Germany brought SAP to the world.
Would you really like more of that?
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Settings > keyboard > add keyboard
Language selector will appear between &123 and 😊.
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I hate the Xbox for this. I don't like localized games, I want them in English and my Xbox is in English, yet most games play in Spanish.
Also, it's really sad how translations get worst as the game progress. By the end of some games is like they just gave up.
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You can't choose language?!
Also anything is clearly better subtitled than dubbed.
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There are some games which do (e.g. FIFA) but many don't.
