Ah yes, the #not_quite_estonian_mafia or as some commenter put it on the site #foreignermafia (as opposed to the #estonianmafia label that goes around every time an Estonian start up is mentioned). In all honesty I'm very happy to see foreigners achieve good results with their start ups in Tallinn. I would love nothing more than to see Tallinn become this international hub for start ups.
We love foreigner-started startups as part of #estonianmafia. That's the joy of the broad term, it can include both Estonians abroad, foreigners in Estonia as well as anyone with any relation to Estonia. You're definitely part of it as well :)
Although I'm a believer in bootstrapped startups, I just hope that if AdCash raises capital they make it from European funds, and not foreign ones. Europe needs to considerably develop is own venture funds and funding resources, and that won't happen if capital comes from abroad.
As a small business owner it sickens me with how these large companies can get away with so much here, ok granted they are creating jobs (badly needed) and have other positive effects on a sinking economy but having Revenue put a blind eye on these shenanigans while making life miserable for small companies is unfair.
Having "only a handful of employees" is hardly creating jobs. And Apple is a notorious example of a company that doesn't actually reinvest most of the money they avoid paying in taxes, they just sit on enormous cash reserves (reinvestment is often used as an excuse for tax breaks and tax holidays here in the US).
As I'm sure you know, VAT is paid by the customer and you're simply collecting it, it's never your money to begin with. And if you are selling to businesses, they can rebate all or part of it.
What is it you are selling? We are an accommodation booking site and only have to pay VAT (we have it in writing from the tax office) on Irish sales, not EU wide.
Jersey (Channel Islands) is working on becoming a focus point for technology investment and startups. While technically it's not part of the EU, it is part of Europe. There's very low taxes and gigabit fibre is being rolled out too.
There are quite a few companies like this (and much better ones) that power infrastructure for whole industries. I'm always very much impressed by these submarine operations.
The €25 Million turnover number is misleading. Later, the article notes, "AdCash gives about 70% - 90% of revenue to their publishers, so with a turnover of €25 million, you can do the math on their theoretical profitability."
Let's say they keep 20% (the middle of that range). That's €5 Million. Of course, that's not profitability. That's essentially their revenue before the expense of having 40 employees, etc.
Still impressive but more realistic with that aspect clarified.
