Internet titans AirBnB, Uber, Facebook and Google are set to be hit with new taxes as part of a long-awaited Australian-led crackdown on digital companies.
The federal government's digital tax discussion paper, first announced in the May budget but kept under wraps for months, has opened the door to taxing digital assets, used by multinationals to make billions of dollars in profit.
Figures released by the Bureau of Statistics on Tuesday show engagement with the digital economy is soaring. Mobile downloads grew by 41 per cent between 2017-18 and broadband downloads increased by 3.8 billion gigabytes.
While Australians are consuming more, the world's digital behemoths are based overseas, leaving a perceived tax imbalance harnessed by Silicon Valley to deliver bumper profits.
Facebook now has 17 million users, 9.8 million Australians watch Netflix and 3.7 million Uber trips were taken over a three-month period in 2017.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison warned in May that he would not wait for the rest of the world to act when he handed down his last budget as treasurer.
His successor, Josh Frydenberg, reheated those calls on Tuesday, telling digital multinationals to expect change.
"The government remains concerned that some very profitable, highly digitised companies pay very little tax in the countries in which they do business," he said.
The discussion paper, released after a three-month Freedom of Information request from Fairfax Media, shows Treasury has its eyes on an interim measure that will tax fees received from Australian customers and an EU-style 3 per cent tax on social media advertising.
But the steps are likely to be temporary as Australia pushes through complex international negotiations that will revolutionise the way digital business are taxed globally.
By 2020, Australia wants the OECD and G20 to put a taxable value for the first time not just on products that are sold, but user data in a bid to stamp out a creeping erosion of the tax base.......
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...-massive-new-digital-tax-20181002-p507bc.html
The federal government's digital tax discussion paper, first announced in the May budget but kept under wraps for months, has opened the door to taxing digital assets, used by multinationals to make billions of dollars in profit.
Figures released by the Bureau of Statistics on Tuesday show engagement with the digital economy is soaring. Mobile downloads grew by 41 per cent between 2017-18 and broadband downloads increased by 3.8 billion gigabytes.
While Australians are consuming more, the world's digital behemoths are based overseas, leaving a perceived tax imbalance harnessed by Silicon Valley to deliver bumper profits.
Facebook now has 17 million users, 9.8 million Australians watch Netflix and 3.7 million Uber trips were taken over a three-month period in 2017.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison warned in May that he would not wait for the rest of the world to act when he handed down his last budget as treasurer.
His successor, Josh Frydenberg, reheated those calls on Tuesday, telling digital multinationals to expect change.
"The government remains concerned that some very profitable, highly digitised companies pay very little tax in the countries in which they do business," he said.
The discussion paper, released after a three-month Freedom of Information request from Fairfax Media, shows Treasury has its eyes on an interim measure that will tax fees received from Australian customers and an EU-style 3 per cent tax on social media advertising.
But the steps are likely to be temporary as Australia pushes through complex international negotiations that will revolutionise the way digital business are taxed globally.
By 2020, Australia wants the OECD and G20 to put a taxable value for the first time not just on products that are sold, but user data in a bid to stamp out a creeping erosion of the tax base.......
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...-massive-new-digital-tax-20181002-p507bc.html