Google to pass cost of digital services taxes on to advertisers
Google intends to pass on the cost of digital services taxes in Europe to advertisers, thus complicating the most recent attempts by governments to capture a bigger slice of the US tech group’s revenues.
It told customers that from November it will charge an additional fee for adverts served in the UK, Turkey and Austria, which explicitly covers the extra regulatory costs in those countries. Read more
OECD’s Global Forum reveals compliance ratings from new peer review assessments for 9 countries, Malta Partially Compliant
On 1 September, the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes (the Global Forum) published nine new peer review reports assessing compliance with the international standard on transparency and exchange of information on request (EOIR).
Interestingly, the Global Forum rates Malta as overall Partially Compliant, despite having been rated Largely Compliant in a past peer review round. The main concerns identified related to the effectiveness of enforcement and supervision activities to ensure the availability of ownership, accounting and banking information, particularly considering the filing compliance rates. Malta also had a large number of inactive companies registered during the review period, which caused delays or failures to provide information to its main EOI partners. Read more
OECD work on Pillars 1 and 2 taking shape
According to leaked blueprints on Pillar 1 and Pillar 2, the OECD’s work on international tax reform is taking shape, ahead of ambitions to reach some form of agreement in October.
Most interestingly, the documents disclose the areas where further political decisions are still needed. For Pillar 1, these include:
- Revenue thresholds, on which the Inclusive Framework will decide as part of an overall political agreement
- Scope, as some members “have advocated for a phased implementation with ADS (Automated Digital Services) coming first and CFB (Consumer Facing Business) following later”, whereas others are opposed to this
The US Safe Harbour proposal, which remains unresolved and will be addressed once the design of the new taxing right is agreed
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