A digital levy to be proposed by the European Commission in the coming weeks to support its recuperation from the Coronavirus pandemic will apply to many companies, most of them European, its executive VP Margrethe Vestager said.
In a bid to start up development and cultivate a greener and more digital economy, the 27 European Union nations last year consented to raise 750 billion euros ($887 billion) for a post-pandemic recuperation fund.
The borrowing, by the European Commission for EU nations, is to be reimbursed over 30 years from new taxes, among them levies on the digital economy and on CO2 emissions.
Vestager is pleased with Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) understanding secured on Thursday on new standards on how companies are taxed and a tax rate of essentially 15% yet she said the EU would continue with its digital levy – despite the fact that she didn’t say how much the levy would be.
“In the event that we can get this completely supported and carried out and tax authorities have the assets really to collect the taxes, all things considered, then, at that point some of the companies which pay almost nothing in taxes today, will contribute to the societies where they do their business,” she said.
She said the EU digital levy had various objectives to the OECD tax bargain and the extent of the toll was “the scope of the levy is more extensive, similarly as principle called a levy, rather than a tax.”
“Where the OECD agreement is for the 100 greatest companies, for some, there are a lot more organizations,” she said, adding that the levy would for the most part affect European firms yet others would likewise be influenced.
“I do see the value in that for a company, regardless you call it’s anything it’s still an expense,” she said, adding that companies should consider it as part of the cost of doing business in Europe.
She declined to give details on which companies would be affected or the size of the levy. The Commission has probably set July 14 for the declaration.
