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US business has attacked the chancellor’s new tax on the world’s largest internet groups, arguing such a plan would set a “dangerous precedent”.
Several countries are considering how to rewrite their tax codes to capture more revenue from US-based companies such as Google, Facebook and Amazon. On Monday, the UK announced the most concrete plan yet: a 2 per cent tax on UK-generated revenues of search engines, social media platforms and online marketplaces if their global revenues are at least ￡500m a year and the company is profitable.
In Washington, Tom Donohue, president of the US Chamber of Commerce, said such a tax would “improperly target large American technology companies” and “set a dangerous precedent”.
In a letter to Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin, he said US business supported dialogue on ways to modernise the international taxation system. But he added: “Unilateral European actions will erode trust and lessen the prospects for international agreement; indeed, we now see governments outside of Europe considering similar actions.”
A Senate Republican official said senators had previously urged the EU to drop a similar plan because “it will create a significant new transatlantic trade barrier and targets US companies”, adding: “This isn’t the first time that Europe has gone after American innovators.”
Josh Kallmer, head of policy at the Information Technology Industry Council, whose members include Google, Apple and eBay, said the proposal seemed to “fundamentally misunderstand how business is done”.
“Virtually any company that does business across borders is digital to a significant degree,” he said, adding that this would raise the prospect of “mission creep”, meaning the tax could apply to companies that are not traditionally thought of as technology groups. Individual tech companies declined to comment.
It remains unclear what the financial impact of the new tax will be. The Office for Budget Responsibility has said it expects the measure to apply to at least 30 companies and should generate ￡400m a year by 2023 — meaning on average each company will pay an additional ￡13m. But estimates based on the US technology companies’ filings suggest the numbers could be much higher.
Many large US technology companies do not publicly provide a breakdown of the revenues they generate from the UK, including Google, Apple and Facebook. Those that do provide this breakdown — such as Amazon — do not provide separate figures on revenues by service. This means the government will be reliant on the tech companies to provide an accurate assessment of their UK user numbers by service line.
Being forced to provide this commercially sensitive information will be contentious, but they are likely to comply with the new regime to avoid any potential reputational damage from not co-operating, according to Dan Neidle, partner at law firm Clifford Chance.
The UK’s decision to press ahead with its plans has highlighted the awkward divisions in the EU over its attempts to impose a similar levy. Brussels has been grappling with plans for a 3 per cent “digital sales tax” since March, but talks have been beset by national differences and technical hurdles.
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