Unofficial translation
“If there is no global agreement, we as the European Commission will propose both a digital tax and a minimum tax next year.” This is what Italian Commissioner of Economy Paolo Gentiloni said last Saturday at a meeting of the EU’s finance and economic affairs ministers in Berlin.
The introduction of a digital tax that applies to all EU member states has been struggling for some time with setbacks. The ball is currently in the hands of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which is responsible for a global roll-out.
The tax is intended for large American technology companies such as Amazon or Google, which, according to critics, pay too little tax in individual markets with their business model. The US is therefore quite reluctant. There is also talk of a global minimum tax, which should make the flight of big companies to tax havens unattractive.
French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire on Friday increased the pressure on the US and other EU countries. If no international consensus is reached by the end of the year, European countries should introduce their own taxes in the first quarter of 2021, he said. France has already introduced a digital tax itself, but suspended actual collection until the end of the year after the US threatened to impose criminal charges . In England, where such a tax has been introduced, companies like Apple and Google immediately increased their business rates.
German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz is optimistic about a global agreement and continues to rely on a digital tax at OECD level, German IT magazine Heise writes .
Source Taxlive.nl
