Syntec Numérique supports OECD proposal on taxation of the digital economy

Syntec Numérique has made numerous contributions to this work, based on four key principles:

• This is not a sectoral issue, but one of global economy, facilitated by the spread of digital uses. We therefore need to rethink all international tax rules.
• The response should enable a new profit-sharing formula to be put in place, equitably between countries, without creating additional taxation.
• The tax will be based on profits, not sales.
• The solution must be global, not national, to avoid damage to the local economy in terms of attractiveness and competition.

For all these reasons, Syntec Numérique welcomes the OECD’s proposal, which avoids these pitfalls and is a step in the right direction.

At a meeting with Syntec Numérique and Digital Europe yesterday morning, Pascal Saint-Amans, Director of the OECD’s Centre for Tax Policy and Administration, confirmed his desire to bring stability and simplicity to this complex international problem. Syntec Numérique therefore remains mobilized to make progress in the construction of this solution, with its ambitious timetable.

¹The BEPS project has produced a set of unprecedented measures that States can implement by adapting their domestic law, in particular to strengthen the rules applicable to controlled foreign companies, follow a common approach to limiting the erosion of tax bases linked to the deduction of interest expenses, and combat hybrid arrangements used to obtain non-taxation of profits by means of complex financial instruments.