Germany · de.indymedia · · 2h
EU budget: digital tax across three corners
Deutsch (original) · Auto-translated to English
The EU Commission suggested last year that large companies should pay more taxes and thus contribute to the EU budget. According to a media report, she now wants to adapt her proposal: The result could be a digital tax, which should not be called that.
The EU has a budget problem. The EU Commission had 2 trillion euros for the years 2028 to 2034https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/europa/eu-finanz-streit-100.html">von...to cope with the increasing tasks. This immediately triggered protests from some EU countries, with net contributors such as Germany and Austria at the top. Most recently, six heads of government, including Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU), called for the proposed seven-year budgethttps://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/international/eu-deutschland-stellen...to reduce “several hundred billion euros”..
In search of so-called own resources, which make up the lion's share of the EU budget, the Commission asked last yearhttps://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/eu-budget/long-term-eu-...five new ones up for debate, including an EU emissions trading system and an excise tax on tobacco. Overall, the Commission expects additional revenue of around 60 billion euros per year.
One of the proposals, the “Corporate Contribution for Europe” (CORE), can be interpreted as an alternative to the digital tax, its EU-wide introductionhttps://netzpolitik.org/2025/digitalsteuer-tech-unternehmen-sollen-blechen/...years failed. The OECD agreement, which was supposed to close loopholes, had already de facto failed. The system cannot be implemented without the United States. But US President Donald Trump is known not to think much of international cooperation.
Focus on sales instead of profits
According to the Commission's original proposal, companies with net sales of more than 100 million euros should pay a certain flat rate. Depending on the size of the company, this levy should amount to between 100,000 euros and 750,000 euros annually. Taxing sales instead of profits would also include companies that use balance sheet acrobatics to conceal profits or pursue an aggressive expansion course and forego lavish profits for the time being.
Onehttps://www.ft.com/content/ad06ed89-f600-4694-8c95-7d53b6d3315b?syn-25a6...the Financial Times(€), the EU Commission is now considering revising its proposal. This was criticized because it allegedly placed too much of a burden on the middle class and was also unfair, like the European onehttps://www.bruegel.org/first-glance/core-concerns-why-turnover-based-le...Tank Bruegel executes.
According to the FT report, the Commission wants to adapt the framework conditions of CORE so that largely only large corporations would be covered. Details are currently unknown, but companies such as Apple, Meta and Google would be affected - without these being explicitly named, the FT quotes six anonymous EU officials.
Trump hovers over everything
The tightrope act is necessary because Donald Trump regularly does sohttps://netzpolitik.org/2025/digitalsteuer-eu-im-zugzwang/">Gegenmameasures such as tariffsthreatens if the EU or individual EU countries introduce digital taxes that are primarily aimed at US companies. Apparently Germany was also impressed by this, where...https://netzpolitik.org/2025/digitalsteuer-tech-unternehmen-sollen-blechen/...by Minister of State for Culture Wolfram Weimerhas so far remained fruitless.
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“Some [EU] capitals oppose a digital-only tax because they don’t want to upset Americans, and even more are against the ‘CORE’ model,” one of the EU officials quoted told the FT. “The solution is to expand [the tax] to cover virtually all large corporations.”
The hope now is that resistance to the model will decrease, at least within the EU. However, success is not guaranteed: unanimity among EU countries is necessary on tax issues. At the same time the clock is ticking. Ideally, the negotiations on the EU financial framework should take place at the latesthttps://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/europa/eu-budget-treffen-100.html">untilCompleted at the end of the year, hopes EU Council President António Costa. Next year there will be elections in France, Poland and Italy, among others, which could complicate the negotiations.
Options are far from exhausted
Meanwhile, a current one demandshttps://wiiw.ac.at/the-future-financing-of-the-european-union-an-analysi...of the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies(PDF) deeper interventions than the Commission is proposing. In general, the EU budget should in future be financed less through national contributions and more through European own resources, demand the economic experts.
The instruments they propose include a financial transaction tax, a European digital tax, a bank levy and levies on very large assets and crypto transactions. In addition to fairer taxation, a broader mix of EU own resources could distribute the financing burden more evenly across different shoulders, facilitate political compromises and also curb tax competition between EU states and broaden the tax base, it is saidhttps://www.presseportal.de/pm/148268/6366277">Conclusionof the paper.
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Become part of this unique community and support our public interest-oriented, advertising- and tracking-free journalismhttps://netzpolitik.org/spenden/?via=rss">nowwith a donation.
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