Tax Director, Hans Christian Holte, fears confidence in the tax system weakens when global players such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook escape tax claims.
The tax director believes such companies undermine the welfare state and tax morality, and he said that new rules are urgent.
Holte will attend this week at the OECD’s Tax Summit in Chile’s capital, Santiago. There, as head of the OECD’s Tax Forum (FTA), he will address the issue of taxing large global companies that can do business and make money in a country without being physically present in the country.
‘’What we are always concerned with is how to secure the good confidence in the tax system that we have today.
Therefore, it is important that we have a system that we see works for all types of companies’’ Holte told NRK news.
Prior to the meeting, the Tax Directorate wrote that physical presence has been the decisive criterion for being able to tax foreign companies in Norway. The digitization of the econom challenges this model.
‘’The digitization of the economy means that companies can increasingly serve a market without significant physical presence there. This puts pressure on the international rules on which countries should be able to tax income.
Holte is aware that countries must cooperate on the tax rules.
‘’Solo actions from individual countries will not lead us to a clear tax system for the world in the digital area’’ said Holte.
© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today
