Dec. 31, 2018

Since France started to implement its own tax on the so-called “GAFA”, meaning Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon from January 1st, 2019, Sebastian Kurz, Austrian Chancellor, also announced plans to raise taxes on digital giants from 2020.

Although all 28 EU countries failed to tax those digital giants, many countries in Europe would like to go their own way. For example, the UK decided to implement a 2% tax from April 2020. At present, the regional companies in Europe pay 23 percent tax on their profits, while the largest companies pay an average of only 9 percent and such digital giants as Amazon and Facebook pay hardly any tax on the huge profits online.

The tech giants can select which member country of the EU to report its profits; therefore, they can pick the countries with the low taxation rate like Netherlands, Luxembourg, or Ireland.