Google said Thursday it was favorable to an international agreement that multinationals pay more taxes in countries where they generate their turnover rather than mainly in their country of origin.
"Make (a) contribution" to the countries concerned
"We support the movement for a new global and global framework for how multinational corporations are taxed," writes Karan Bhatia, a senior US giant, in a blog. "The corporate tax is an important way for companies to contribute to the countries and communities in which they do business, and we would like to see a tax environment that people consider reasonable and appropriate," he adds. -he.
The G20 countries are meeting this weekend in Japan. Several of their finance ministers met in early June to lay the groundwork for an agreement on the international taxation of digital giants. France, despite opposition from the United States, intends to set up its own tax Gafa (acronym for Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple) to tax digital activities that "create value through French netizens".
"We are not the only ones"
Google pointed out that such a shift in taxation would mean that the Silicon Valley giants will pay less taxes in the US and more elsewhere. Its global tax rate is 23% on average over the last ten years, mainly in the United States, in line with the 23.7% of OECD countries. "We are not the only ones paying most of our corporate tax in our home country," said Karan Bhatia.
But without international agreement on the matter, he said, "countries could impose discriminatory unilateral taxes on foreign companies in different sectors". "We are already seeing these kinds of problems in the proposals that have been made," says the Google leader. This "would raise new trade barriers, slow down international investment and hurt economic growth".