EU wants to tax turnover of large tech companies with 2 to 6 percent procent

The sales tax that the European Union wants to impose on large tech companies per country is between 2 percent and 6 percent. The guideline will be published in a few weeks with details about the plans. This is reported by the French Minister of Economic Affairs.

According to French Minister of Economy Bruno Le Maire, the percentage will be closer to 2 percent than 6 percent. He says so in an interview with the French newspaper Journal du Dimanche. It concerns tax on the turnover generated by the companies per EU country, so regardless of the country in which the company is headquartered. According to Le Maire, for example, Amazon is welcome in France, because it increases the number of jobs for the low-skilled.

According to him, the tax should ensure fairer competition with the smaller stores. Furthermore, the tax would be based on turnover because details about the profits are difficult to obtain due to tax structures. According to him, a relatively low rate has been chosen in order to be able to implement the directive quickly and it could be amended in due course.

France in particular has been pushing for taxing large tech companies such as Facebook, Google, Amazon, Airbnb and Uber for some time. In February, Reuters reported that the tax will apply to companies with a global turnover of more than €750 million, with a “digital turnover threshold” of €10 million per year being reached in the European Union. Streaming services such as Netflix, online gaming services and cloud services would be exempt from the tax.