Google Passing on Cost of Digital Services Taxes in India and Italy

Google will begin passing on the costs of digital services taxes (DST) to their customers for online advertising displayed in India and Italy. The costs will be passed on in the form of an additional 2% fee that will be added to invoices for online advertising in these countries beginning 1 October 2021, although for India, the 2% fee is only added if the billing country is not India.

This follows such fees added by Google for online advertising in Austria (5%), Turkey (5%), and the United Kingdom (2%) from 1 November 2020 and in France (2%) and Spain (2%) from 1 May 2021. Google refers to these country-specific fees as “Regulatory Operating Costs” or “DST Fees” depending on the country. As noted in guidance published by the company, these new fees are associated with the cost of doing business in these jurisdictions.