"We propose taking the revenues of these large companies as a reference point, and use this to determine a tax level so that these companies pay what they should to the treasuries of every country where they make money," he said. He acknowledged, however, that similar proposals had already been made at an EU level as well as for the OECD group of developed economies, without success.
"For now, these talks have stalled," Le Maire said. The internet companies have come under fire in Europe for using complex fiscal arrangements to declare profits in countries with the lowest tax rates, even when they are earned elsewhere in the bloc.
Le Maire's comments come after Google recently escaped a 1.115 billion euro ($1.33 billion) tax bill sought by the French treasury, after a court ruled that the US company's Irish subsidiary was not taxable in France. French President Emmanuel Macron promised to get tough on US internet giants during his election campaign, seeing their low tax rates as a source of resentment about globalisation and as unfair for European companies.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2017