This post makes no sense, the EU doesn't have any rights of interior taxation, the member states haven't devolved that. It only does trade agreements and sets (not: collects!) import/export taxes. The only thing this could be is somehow summing/estimating from member states' numbers?
Very unclear to me what is going on here. I'm treating it as bogus for the time being. Can somebody else make sense of it?
This post makes no sense, the EU doesn't have any rights of interior taxation, the member states haven't devolved that. It only does trade agreements and sets (not: collects!) import/export taxes. The only thing this could be is somehow summing/estimating from member states' numbers?
Very unclear to me what is going on here. I'm treating it as bogus for the time being. Can somebody else make sense of it?
To me it's very clear what's going on:
- gather some unrelated data, bend it to what you want it to say
- make an inflammatory post
- go viral and profit!
Tweet says the EU has fined big tech €3.8 billion... but a cursory AI-powered search suggests the US has fined them much more:
- $5b fine for Meta https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2019/07/...
- $1b fine + $2.5b settlement for Amazon https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/09/...
- $170m + $136m + $34m for Google for invading children's privacy https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2019/09/...
- $425m for Google for tracking after tracking was explicitly disabled https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3dr91z0g4zo
Maybe their own companies would make more money and pay more tax if American companies would stop breaking the law all the time.
Fines are taxes one pays to not follow the rules, and these companies operate in the EU.
Which taxes go directly to the EU rather than member states?
AIUI the fines all go directly to the EU.
As for the taxes — nothing goes directly to the EU, cf. root level post.