LONDON: Britain said it was considering taxing the revenues of Internet companies like Facebook and Google until international tax rules are changed to cope with digital firms that can shift sales and profits between jurisdictions. Finance minister Philip Hammond said on March 12 he had published a paper setting out proposals for taxing global digital firms before a meeting with his G20 counterparts later this week. Both Google and Facebook have changed the way they account for their activity in Britain, resulting in a rise in corporate tax paid. The government said on Tuesday it favoured reforming the international corporate tax framework, but acknowledged that achieving consensus and creating detailed proposals would be difficult. TechUK, a group representing more than 950 tech firms, said corporate tax was highly complex, and the government needed to consider the risk of unintended consequences that could result from moving to a revenue-based tax approach.

Source: The Star March 14, 2018 06:56 UTC