DUBLIN: U.S tech groups such as Google, owned by Alphabet Inc , and Apple use complex intra-group arrangements to pay low single-digit tax rates on profits derived from European customers. Frequently these strategies hinge on the co-operation of smaller EU nations like Luxembourg which sometimes take a light touch approach on tax to help encourage inward investment. President Emmanuel Macron’s government has proposed taxing the tech giants on revenues rather than profits, to get around the problem that the companies shift the profits from where they are earned to low tax jurisdictions. The EU is mulling new tax rules on digital companies which may include a tax on their turnover, a levy on online ads or a withholding tax on payments to internet firms. However, previous international efforts to tackle profit shifting by digital companies has faced legal difficulties, not least around defining what is a digital company.The coalition agreement between Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives and the Social Democrats, published on Wednesday, said the parties backed another possible solution. We support a common, consolidated tax base and minimum rates of business taxation,” the coalition partners said, adding that they wanted, with France, “to give a European answer to international changes and challenges in this area, not least in the United States.” A common, consolidated tax base system would apportion companies’ European profits to countries proportionate to the where their customers and operations are located, rather than allowing them to channel the profits into lower tax jurisdictions like Ireland. European citizens would struggle to understand why the taxation of digital giants at a European level only raised tens of millions of euros. They would see that as a provocation and they would be right.” The French government is open to working with other members of the OECD group of industrialized nations, which are currently seeking international solutions to the problem of corporate profit shifting.
FTO makes online hearings default for tax complaints
LAHORE: The Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO) has made online hearings the default mode for resolving tax complaints at its headquarters...
