Over the past few years, the tax payments of the major Internet giants , following their activities in Europe, have been the subject of controversy.
The establishment in Ireland, a country where there are numerous tax benefits for companies, has caused discontent among several tax authorities in territories such as France, which have not hesitated to investigate and demand payment of overdue taxes, which have also led to various fines.
That is why the French Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, has launched an initiative to establish an indirect tax on the turnover of technology companies in Europe. This is an alternative route given the previous failed attempts by the authorities.
“Being able to appropriately tax companies operating in the digital economy is a huge challenge for the EU. We must no longer accept that these companies do business in Europe while paying minimal amounts of tax to our treasuries,” explains Le Maire in the document addressed to his European colleagues, as reported by the newspaper El Mundo.
Although some countries such as Austria, Bulgaria, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia armenia phone number and Greece have agreed that paying such low taxes is "not acceptable", they have also been opposed by Luxembourg, Malta and Ireland, which do not believe that this path is the solution.
There are now ten countries, including the Big Four in Europe, that support the initiative and, according to EU rules, this is a sufficient number to initiate forced cooperation.
However, few people are opting for this solution because, if approved, it would only be applicable in the territories in agreement and the intention is for the measures to be global.
What is clear, at least as Danish Minister Kristian Jensen has said , is that “we have to be very careful. We must not tax products, they are the future, citizens want them and it would be very difficult for Europe to compete with China or the US. They are always sceptical about new taxes.”
The aim from now on is for the European Commission to create some proposals that will be discussed in Tallinn, at a new informal Ecofin summit, and thus be able to reach a common position.