|
Germany, Italy and Spain have already signed onto a French
proposal that digital multinationals such as those two leading
companies should be taxed in Europe based on their revenues,
rather than only profits as at present.
Currently such companies are often taxed on profits booked by
subsidiaries in low-tax countries like Ireland, even though the
bulk of their sales comes from other EU countries.
Le Maire is due to present the plan to other EU counterparts at
a meeting in the Estonian capital of Tallinn on Saturday.
"Other European countries will join on Saturday morning this
French initiative that we want to succeed and to succeed
quickly," Le Maire told a news conference on Thursday.
Le Maire played down report in French newspaper Les Echos that
the Germans were not fully on board with the initiative, saying
he and his German counterpart Wolfgang Schaeuble were "on the
same line".
A French Finance Ministry source said the proposed tax was the
best way to move quickly, because there were far fewer
constraints under international tax law for a levy based on a
company's revenues than for profits.
Technical discussions would have to focus on defining how much
revenue comes from a given country and what rate to use, a
second ministry source said, suggesting that the rate would be
of the order of several percentage points.
So far, the ministry is not putting out a figure of how much
revenue the tax could raise.
However, an EU lawmaker's study suggested EU states could have
lost 5.4 billion euros ($6.4 billion) in tax revenues from
Google and Facebook between 2013 and 2015.
($1 = 0.8401 euros)
(Reporting by Leigh Thomas; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta and
Matthew Mpoke Bigg)
[© 2017 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2017 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
|
