The EU attempts to impose a digital tax on giants of technology

The European Union, through a meeting of central bankers and G20 finance ministers, is attempting to advance global tax rules for the digital economy, putting them at odds with their US counterparts. On the international tax regime by 2020, without giving more details.

The European Commission, which is the executive branch of the European Union, proposed this year rules for technology companies to pay more taxes, including US tech giants like Alfabet, Facebook and Amazon. Will be included in the new tax, with additional annual revenues estimated at around 5 billion euros ($ 6 billion).

Pierre Moscovici, European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, told reporters at the G20 meeting: "The big digital companies will pay their fair share of taxes, because what we are talking about here, Is essentially justice. " Sales before the end of the year as a temporary solution.

Some members of the European Union have expressed concern that their businesses are affected by this tax and that international partners respond with retaliation. Hubert Fuchs, Austrian Secretary of State for Finance and representative of the G20 European Council, said: Taxes on the digital economy are particularly important for US companies, as they represent the main players in the world, so that the United States believes that it is an attack on their digital economy. "

Steven Mnuchin, the US Treasury Secretary, said in a statement earlier this year that he strongly opposed the proposals of any country for digital companies, noting that these companies were major contributors to the US economy Scott Morrison, the Australian Treasury Secretary, said the G-20 talks were useful because they created the root of the problem: no one knows how to measure the tax value data on social network users such as Facebook outside the countries where they are based If these technical problems are not resolved, more countries could take provisional measures The European Commission wants a solution overall long-term based on a new way of calculating tax rates, but at the same time pushed the income tax to offset income losses countries of the European Union by the big digital companies.

A European official described a fair taxation of technology giants as a way to prove that the EU is united and strong at a time when regional leaders are under pressure from the US Donald Trump administration: "We can not accept that our SMEs 40 points the level of taxes on the giants of technology."

The proposed European tax is a major shift from current legislation and rules, where companies pay taxes if they can make a profit and do not pay taxes if they declare losses. "Taxes must be in the place of the industry, the money, and if the digital economy is making money all over the world, it does not really have to meaning if it declares only its income in the United States. "