France will tax Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon from 2019
Bruno Le Maire, France’s economy minister, has announced that France will impose a tax on major internet giants from January 1, 2019. In any case, it concerns Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon, which are collectively referred to as ‘Gafa’.
In any case, this ‘Gafa tax’ will be applicable from the first day of 2019, according to Le Maire. This will cover the entire following year, which he believes will bring the French treasury an amount of 500 million euros. It is not just a tax that is limited to the turnover of the Internet companies; the tax is also applied to income from advertising and trade in personal data.
The French minister previously said France was willing to wait until March for an EU-wide deal to start taxing tech giants. Le Maire said just a month ago that the EU was close to reaching an agreement on this point. Last week it turned out that the European Parliament has already approved the tax for the tech giants. However, the European Commission and the Council also have to agree to it. The French government apparently does not want to wait any longer, which is probably partly caused by the pressure of the yellow vests movement and the French impatience on this point.
In March, the European Commission announced a plan to tax large tech companies for their digital activities. This would be expected to yield five billion euros per year, based on a rate of three percent. According to this EU plan, only tech companies of any size will be affected. For example, they must 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.
France has long been a strong supporter of a special tax for large internet companies. In 2012, the then French president Sarkozy already wanted such a tax. The country finds it unacceptable that the companies in question derive billions of euros in turnover from the country, but pay little or no tax. Le Maire also doesn’t think it’s fair that the internet giants pay much less tax than smaller companies.