EU: the tax on web giants is to expand consensus to G20

The Council of the European Union, which brings together the heads of state of the member countries and is therefore the European institution with the greatest decision-making powers, has adopted new rules to strengthen administrative and tax cooperation in relation to the earnings of digital platforms.

In particular, groups such as Amazon, Google or Facebook will be obliged to declare how much they earn in individual countries, which is currently not the case.

A very common practice among web giants is to transfer profits to branches domiciled in countries with zero or negligible taxation.

The tax “ensures that activities that are not taxed today start generating immediate revenue for Member States,” explains Brussels. And it helps to “avoid unilateral action’ that would create a ‘patchwork of national responses that would damage our single market”.