The French and Germans want tech giants to pay appropriate tax in Europe

The issue of tax in Europe, particularly in France and German, does not seem to be a happy one when it comes to tech giants like Apple, Google, Amazon, and Facebook. Both countries want tech companies to pay appropriate tax in Europe. They are saying that for the sake of the business, tech companies are paying tax in China, and as well as in the US, but when it comes in Europe it seems that they try to look for a loophole to escape the taxes.

Therefore, according to Bruno Le Maire, the Finance Minister of France, tech companies from now on have to pay appropriate tax in order to continue their business in Europe.

The finance minister recently said with Bloomberg that “Europe must learn to defend its economic interest much more firmly — China does it, the U.S. does it. “You cannot take the benefit of doing business in France or in Europe without paying the taxes that other companies — French or European companies — are paying.”

The main fact is that in Europe, Ireland and Luxembourg set low corporate tax rates in their countries; therefore, major foreign companies like Apple, Google, and Amazon are taking advantage of minimizing their taxes rather than paying more to other countries in Europe.

On the other hand countries like Germany, France, Italy, UK do not want to take fewer taxes from these tech companies rather a meaningful amount of tax is what they are asking for. Therefore, we can see that last year the European Commission accounted for Apple to pay billions of dollars in taxes.

Coming in September, the European Union will have an important meeting, where the French are supposed to propose the new tax regulation for tech companies. This proposal was what Germany and France discussed last month. France’s President Emmanuel Macron has set out to lower French corporate taxes to 25 percent for five years and Bruno Le Maire is also expecting that other European countries would follow the same path to stay together.

Regarding this issue, Maire said to Bloomberg that “France was making a considerable effort. We’re asking other member states of the euro zone to make a similar effort in the other direction.”