French minister: EU agrees on tax for tech giants at the end of March

Bruno Le Maire, the French economy minister, says in an interview with the French Sunday newspaper Le Journal de Dimanche that he expects the EU member states to agree on a tax for tech giants by the end of March.

According to Le Maire, there are still some Member States who have their doubts about the imposition of such a tax, but nevertheless he says he is convinced that an agreement will be reached by the end of March. The French minister notes that progress is being made.

A plan for a tax that is imposed on tech giants such as Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon should have been completed last year, but partly because a number of countries resisted, it fell through. In December, the European Parliament already approved the tax.

France decided in December that it no longer wanted to wait for an agreement in the EU; the country itself came up with the so-called Gafa tax, which is imposed on, among others, Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon. This has been in effect since the first day of 2019. The United Kingdom is also coming up with its own variant; it should take effect in April 2020.

In March last year, the European Commission came up with a plan to tax large tech companies for their digital activities. This would yield about five billion euros per year, assuming a rate of three percent. This tax will only apply to large tech companies that have an annual worldwide turnover of at least EUR 750 million and the income from European activities must be at least EUR 50 million per year.