Britain has surprised the giants of technology with a new procedure. What is it?

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain plans to impose new taxes on tech giants such as Facebook, Google and Amazon after some tech companies have been criticized for their limited UK taxes.

Philip Hammond, Chancellor of the British Exchequer, said that a 2% tax on digital sales in the UK would be applied in April 2020. This new measure is expected to add about 400 million pounds ( $ 512 million) per year to the Consolidated Revenue Fund.

He explained that the tax would only apply to companies generating worldwide revenues of not more than 500 million pounds ($ 640 million) per year.

"The new tax will be carefully designed to ensure that the technology giants bear the tax burden, not our emerging technology companies," Hammond told parliament Monday night about the UK budget.

He pointed out that companies such as "Facebook" would be affected by the new tax and would likely be affected by US technology companies such as "Google" and "Amazon".

Hammond acknowledged that reaching a broad agreement "would be better", but said that progress towards consensus was "extremely slow".

The British Industry Association, an economic lobby, said the new tax could have a huge impact on UK investment and hinder opportunities. Develop businesses and create jobs. "

Stella Amis, head of tax policy at PricewaterhouseCoopers, said the new tax "could be considered an anti-US measure and could have a negative effect on Britain during trade negotiations after the deadline set by BRICST" .