Truce between the two sides of the Atlantic. The European countries that have unilaterally implemented the GoogleSpain, among them, have reached an agreement with the United States to maintain their digital taxes until the multilateral solution that is being negotiated within the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the G-20 enters into force. , scheduled for the end of 2023. Instead, Washington has promised to withdraw the tariffs that it had introduced in retaliation for the implementation of these figures.
This “pragmatic solution” has been announced this Thursday through a joint declaration between the United States and the five European countries that have a digital rate – France, Italy, Austria, Spain and the United Kingdom – and its objective is to facilitate a orderly transition when a consensus is reached at the global level that seems to be getting closer and closer.
The OECD has just closed an agreement between 136 countries to advance the reform of international fiscal rules, and which revolves around two pillars. The first, which is estimated to start rolling at the end of 2023, is precisely the one that refers to the digital tax: it is a formula to distribute a part of the profits of large multinationals in the countries where they operate, even if they do not have it there. physical presence.
The second pillar consists of setting a minimum rate for corporation tax. In this area, an international consensus has already been reached so that the tax floor is 15%.
The US is the headquarters of the main technology multinationals, such as Facebook or Google, and considers that the digital taxes adopted by European countries harm their companies. For this reason, Washington had announced in June the imposition of an additional 25% of tariffs on Spanish products, although at the same time it established a six-month moratorium, which ends this November, pending an international agreement. These surcharges were aimed at the textile, footwear or interior glassware sector, among other sectors.
Transitional period
Thus, the agreement reached with the United States implies that Spain maintains its Google until the entry into force of pillar 1, scheduled for December 31, 2023. A transitional period is also established during which Washington agrees not to initiate any commercial retaliation against these five European countries, between January 1, 2022 and the entry into force of pillar 1 or, alternatively, on December 31, 2023.
There will also be a subsequent evaluation: in 2024 it will be analyzed how much the companies affected by the digital tax have paid during the transitional period that goes from January 1, 2022 to December 31, 2023. If their taxation is higher than that which would have corresponded to apply the international solution of pillar 1, a tax credit for said amount will be generated for them.
The Google Spanish entered into force at the beginning of this year, but it began to be charged until the second semester due to delays in its regulatory development. It is aimed at companies with worldwide revenues of more than 750 million and a turnover in Spain of more than three million, taxing 3% on services such as online advertising, intermediation online and the sale of data generated by the user during their activity. In the first half of the year, this figure only raised 92 million euros, 9.5% of what the Treasury initially expected to collect for it.
“It is a very positive agreement that provides legal security and certainty to our productive fabric by guaranteeing that there will be no trade barriers to the entry of Spanish products into the US market,” said the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero. “In addition, with this agreement Spain fulfills its commitment that it would adapt the digital tax to the international consensus within the framework of the OECD and the G-20”.