Editor hoping for more tax demanded from Facebook and Google

Facebook. Photo: Stian Lysberg Solum / SCANPIX .

After Apple has been required to pay 13 billion euros in penalty tax in Ireland, the Aftenposten editor is hopeful of similar claims against companies like Facebook and Google.

Apple is one of a number of companies that have operations in Ireland and who enjoys low tax rates. Recently the EU comission ordered the company to pay a staggering 13 billion euros in back taxes to Ireland, although Ireland has never asked for the money.

Aftenposten’s editor Espen Egil Hansen hopes that the EU issues similar tax claims against Facebook and Google, writes the newspaper Klassekampen. Several Norwegian media companies consider the two IT giants as their main competitors.

– Facebook and Google use exactly the same mechanisms and opportunities that Apple has used for tax planning.
This causes the media industry which I represent, to not have equal conditions and competition, which is relatively devastating for us when we want to enter the digital market, says Hansen.

 

Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today