Daily Times

The European Union this month will unveil plans to tax large global tech companies’ revenue at a rate in the 2-to-6-percent range, though more likely closer to 2 than to 6 percent, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said in a newspaper interview.

” A European directive will be disclosed in the coming weeks. It will be a considerable step. The (tax rate) range is 2 percent to 6 percent, we will be closer to 2 percent than 6 percent”, Le Maire told Le Journal du Dimanche.

To those who might say the measure is too modest, Le Maire said his answer was: “It’s a starting point. I prefer a text that will be implemented very quickly rather than endless negotiations. We will fine tune it later”.

A draft European Commission document seen by Reuters last month and subject to changes before its publication, proposed a levy based on where the customer – rather than the company – is located. The charge would be based on 1 percent to 5 percent of the company’s “aggregated gross revenues”.

The proposal aims at increasing the tax bill of firms like Amazon.com, Alphabet’s Google and Facebook, which are accused by large EU states of paying too little by rerouting their EU profits to low-tax countries such as Luxembourg and Ireland.

Italy, Germany and Spain, together with France, are spearheading the push for tax reform.

Published in Daily Times, March 5^th 2018.