The OECD has made a proposal in the dispute over fairer taxation of Internet companies. The "uniform approach" at international level provides, among other things, that taxation is not only based on the respective head office. This emerges from a paper published by the organization on Wednesday.
Instead, international companies such as Google, Amazon or Apple should also pay royalties where customers or users of services sit and companies generate revenues.
The OECD proposal is a compromise of several competing proposals from the Member States. It is based, among other things, on the reflections of the leading economic powers from the G20 summit in June in Japan.
Also other corporations affected
The paper will be presented next week at the meeting of G20 finance ministers in Washington and is now open to public discussion. The new approach is aimed not only at Internet companies, but also at consumer-oriented international companies.
The economic powers of the G7 had agreed this summer to agree on a global regulatory framework at OECD level by January 2020. It should clarify in which countries digital companies have to pay taxes.
Paris had recently introduced single-handedly the digital tax at the national level, after attempts at the EU level had failed. Many of the companies affected by the tax are based in the United States.
"Failure to reach an agreement by 2020 would significantly increase the risk that countries will act unilaterally, with negative consequences for an already fragile global economy," said OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría. "We must not let this happen."
