The executive vice president of the EU commission, margrethe vestager, has spoken out in favor of national digital taxes.
From day one, she has been a strong supporter of national initiatives such as the french tax on digital companies, she told the "suddeutsche zeitung" (friday). Commission will help other member states introduce digital taxes, said vestager, who is responsible for digital issues. The french tax on internet companies was met with criticism from the u.S. Government, which sees american companies like google at a disadvantage. France and the USA have defused the dispute this week.
According to the paper, vestager justified her support by saying that the french levy would give momentum to the debate on fair taxation of online corporations: "it's very important that we keep that momentum going because it's a very fundamental injustice that most people and companies pay their taxes, and those companies are competing with companies that don't pay tax."
But vestager said that a solution at the level of the OECD industrial countries organization would be preferable to going it alone at the national level. At the OECD, countries are negotiating a fairer distribution of tax revenues from global corporations. If these talks fail, the commission has already announced its intention to propose the introduction of an EU-wide digital tax. However, the authority had already proposed such a levy two years ago and had failed due to the resistance of some member states.