PARIS — Governments will get more power to tax big multinationals like Google, Apple and Facebook doing business in their countries under a proposed overhaul of decades-old rules.
This year more than 130 countries and territories agreed that a rewriting of tax rules largely going back to the 1920s was overdue and tasked the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development to come up with proposals. While that means countries like Ireland or offshore tax havens could suffer, countries with big consumer markets like the United States or France would benefit from the shake-up.
Apple is locked in an EU tax dispute over profits booked in Ireland which could cost the iPhone maker US$14 billion. Meanwhile, Google agreed last month to pay more than US$1 billion to settle a tax case in France. The aim is to give the government where the user or client of a company’s product is located the right to tax a bigger share of the profit earned by a foreign company there.
Not only would big internet companies be covered, but also big consumer firms that sell retail products in a market through a distribution network, which they may or may not own.