I'm no fan of the overreach of the US government that includes, but is not limited to:<p>- requiring all citizens and non-citizens to declare all foreign bank accounts (FBAR) including signatory authorities on trusts and companies;<p>- unclear rules on the aforementioned. Do you have to declare retirement accounts? Are they taxed? Nobody really knows. It's clear the only value in FBAR is in non-compliance if the government decides to prosecute you;<p>- requiring non-resident citizens and residents to file tax returns and pay taxes if their income is sufficiently high and either the income is in a country that has no double taxation treaty with the US or it does and its tax rate is simply lower, even for those who haven't stepped foot in the US in 20+ years. I actually know many US citizens who don't do this and it could be a real problem for them at some point.<p>All of this while allowing the systematic avoidance of tax by US companies on a massive scale. US companies need to report their foreign income. An individual would have to pay US taxes on foreign income. Why shouldn't a company do the same? Why can't it pay the difference between US taxes and whatever taxes they've already paid as is standard in all double taxation treaty cases?<p>But the move here by the French is blatantly political and narrowly targeted at US companies. You'll note the language is around the "digital economy". Well, why should such reform be limited to only Internet companies, which--surprise, surprise--are primarily US companies?<p>That's actually what the US (rightfully IMHO) is objecting to.<p>All of this is simply window dressing however. The real problem with the system is complexity. Think of tax loopholes as bugs. The more complex software, the more bugs there are and the harder it is to eradicate them. Tax law is no different.<p>Unfortunately there is no political appetite for true reform as every complicated exception is the result of shoring up some constituency or pork barreling or other "corruption" so as much as we need to stop, say, poring money into corn subsidies, it just won't happen for the foreseeable future.<p>Borders are disappearing. We already see the nonsensical effects of this such as attempts to limit content distribution to geographical regions. At some point we're simply going to have a global tax regime and, dare I say it, world government, scary as that will probably be.