Key insights
- The EU is considering a 3% digital services tax potentially raising €5 billion annually, alongside other levies on gambling and crypto. While aimed at bolstering the EU budget, such taxes could increase operating costs for large tech companies, potentially impacting their profitability and investment decisions. This could indirectly affect US-listed tech giants with significant European operations, leading to a slightly bearish outlook due to increased regulatory and tax burdens.
Investing.com -- The European Commission estimates it could generate up to €5 billion ($5.82 billion) annually from a 3% digital services tax applied across the bloc, according to a commission assessment dated May 28 seen by Bloomberg.
The document, intended to inform negotiations on the EU’s next seven-year budget, also outlined potential revenue from other levies. An online gambling tax could raise up to €1.9 billion, while a crypto transaction tax could generate between €3 billion and €4 billion.
A capital gains tax on crypto assets could bring in between €1 billion and €2.4 billion, though the commission warned that the cryptocurrency market remains impossible to quantify reliably across different EU member states.
The EU is negotiating a €2 trillion budget, proposed last July, set to take effect at the end of next year. Most funding would come from direct contributions from EU countries, but the EU also proposed levies on large companies, a share of tobacco excise revenue, and on unreturned electronics.
Those proposals have not advanced, and EU leaders instructed the commission to explore additional revenue options, including those outlined in the assessment. The commission stated that its proposal to tax large companies would include both a gambling and a digital tax.
To implement either tax, the commission would need to pass sector-specific legislation unanimously to harmonize the tax base before proposing a new tax. This represents a politically challenging measure, as EU countries are reluctant to transfer taxing authority to the commission.
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