After Google, Apple and Amazon, it is Facebook's turn to regularize its tax situation with the French administration. The social network said Monday, August 24, it had sealed an agreement on an adjustment of 106 million euros in corporate tax for its French subsidiary over the period 2009-2018.

For the year 2019, the Californian giant clarified that it had paid 8.46 million euros in corporate tax, an increase "of nearly 50% compared to last year". "We take our tax obligations seriously, pay the taxes we owe in all the markets in which we operate and work closely with tax administrations around the world to ensure compliance with all applicable tax laws and resolve any disputes," Facebook said in a statement.

Showdown between Paris and Washington

Asked by AFP, the Ministry of Public Accounts declined to comment, taking refuge behind tax secrecy. The question of the taxation of digital giants is the subject of international negotiations at the OECD and constitutes a particularly sharp point of contention between the United States and France.

Paris, like many other capitals in Europe and around the world, believes that the amounts of taxes paid by the digital behemoths in the countries where they are present are often far too low compared to their real impact on local economies. .

The French Parliament definitively adopted on July 11, 2019 the introduction of a tax on digital giants, based on turnover, pending an international agreement on the matter.

But the United States has announced retaliatory measures following this French initiative, in the form of additional tariffs on French cosmetics and handbags which will amount to $ 1.3 billion if they enter. force in a few months.

In an attempt to respond to criticism from the French government, Facebook announced in 2017 that it had "changed its sales structure" so that the turnover generated by its sales teams located in France is properly declared and taxed in France, by being included in the calculation of corporate tax for Facebook France.

But despite this reform, the 8.46 million euros in corporate tax paid in France by Facebook for 2019 is only a tiny fraction of the 6.3 billion in income taxes announced in total by Facebook in its annual accounts for the year 2019, mostly paid in the United States.

And these 8.46 million are certainly not related to the contribution of the French economy to the profits of Facebook.

"We understand that there is frustration"

“We understand that there is frustration over the way tech companies are taxed in Europe,” Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg himself acknowledged in February 2020. “We want the process to continue. course at the OECD succeeds in order to have a stable and reliable system in the future. And we accept that this may mean that we will have to pay more taxes and pay them in different places, in a new framework ", had- he adds.

Since the coming to power of Emmanuel Macron, the French government has settled several tax disputes with the American digital giants. Almost a year ago, in September 2019, Google agreed to pay nearly a billion euros to settle all of its disputes with the French tax authorities.

As part of this agreement, the multinational had agreed on the one hand to pay a fine of 500 million euros to put an end to an investigation by the National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF), and on the other hand to pay 465 million euros. 'euros of tax catch to close the reorganization procedures initiated against him.

In early 2019, it was Apple who agreed to pay 500 million euros to settle 10 years of tax arrears, and Amazon had reached an identical agreement in February 2018 for 200 million euros.

With AFP

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