France will tax tech giants in December, announces Le Maire

France will tax the tech giants in December, after the failure of negotiations at the OECD, the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, confirmed this Sunday on France 3.

«We had suspended the collection of the tax until the OECD negotiations were concluded. This negotiation failed, so we will collect a tax on the digital giants next December“, He said during the program Dimanche en politique.

«France must be proud to be one of the first countries in Europe, with Spain, with Italy, with Austria to levy fair taxation on digital people, of whom I recall that they are the the only winners of this crisis», Underlined the Minister.

The OECD wants to reach an agreement by mid-2021

Last Monday, the 137 countries negotiating under the aegis of the OECD failed to find an agreement so that large digital companies “pay their fair share of taxes“. If the OECD is confident to achieve by mid-2021, its Secretary General Angel Gurria predicted, in the event of definitive failure, “an increase in unilateral actions, retaliatory measures“, And in fine, a new”trade war».

These new tax rules, in addition to pacifying international economic relations, could bring in 200 billion dollars a year, welcome as the pandemic has “widened the deficitsPublic, had argued Angel Gurria at a press conference. Opposite, the digital giants have “benefits”Of the digitization of the economy, accelerated by the various containment measures around the world.

For example, Facebook achieved a turnover of nearly $ 70 billion in 2019, but paid 8.46 million euros in corporate tax in France in 2019. A tiny fraction of the 6 , 3 billion in taxes paid by the group, mainly in the United States.