Germany Urges Global Minimum Tax For Digital Giants

Germany is backing a global minimum tax rate as Europe looks to levy tax notably on U.S. tech giants. 'Europe is trying to devise a strategy to tax profits from the likes of Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and digital platforms such as YouTube and Airbnb which currently manage to keep fiscal exposure to a bare minimum,' reports Yahoo News. From the report: 'We need a minimum tax rate valid globally which no state can get out of (applying),' Scholz, a social democrat in conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition government, told the 'Welt am Sonntag' weekly. Digital platforms 'aggravate a problem which we know well from globalization and which we are trying to counter -- the shifting of profits to fiscally beneficial regions,' said Scholz. Scholz explained he had launched an initiative designed to help states react to so-called fiscal dumping in support of embryonic OECD plans designed to fight tax transparency and cross-border tax evasion. 'We require coordinated mechanisms which prevent the displacement of revenues to tax havens,' said Scholz. A March proposal by the Commission includes introducing a tax as a bridge measure until such time as the OECD can roll out a measure which can be applied globally.

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