Equalisation tax on Facebook, Amazon, Google may go only in 2-3 years By CIOReviewIndia

Equalisation tax on Facebook, Amazon, Google may go only in 2-3 years

CIOReviewIndia | Monday, 11 October 2021, 04:40 IST

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Equalisation tax on Facebook, Amazon, Google may go only in 2-3 yearsIndia will abolish the equalisation levy imposed on multinational technology companies such as Google, Facebook, Netflix and Amazon among others only after a new mechanism to allocate revenues of such entities among countries under a proposed global tax deal comes into effect.

India gets about Rs 4,000 crore through equalisation levy, which will have to be withdrawn as part of the global tax deal finalised by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on Friday. The new regime is expected to come into effect only by 2023-24 after the final details are thrashed out.

G20 finance ministers will take up the tax deal at their meeting on October 13. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will attend the meeting.

The equalisation levy of 2-6% is imposed on the turnover of companies such as those cited above that otherwise do not pay taxes in India. "We will withdraw it only after the new tax regime comes into effect," a senior government official told. India has also opposed a move by some developed countries such as the US to provide credit in lieu of equalisation levy till the new tax regime comes into effect.

India cannot suffer revenue losses in the intervening period until the contours of the framework are finalised, said another government official.

While India can continue to impose an equalisation levy till the proposed global regime is rolled out, no new measures can be introduced under the tax now. India has gradually expanded the scope of the levy first introduced in 2016.

Experts says, The equalisation levy of 2% of revenue exceeding Rs 2 crore applies to ecommerce firms that do not have a permanent establishment in India. This is in addition to a 6% levy on payments for digital advertisement services introduced in 2016.

Experts say there could be more deliberations on the proposed digital levy as the proposed threshold for invoking the global tax is still quite high.

"Though the understanding is that countries will withdraw their digital taxes over the next two years, however, considering that the threshold levels for invocation of new global tax rules are quite high, to ensure that India/other countries in a similar situation are not at a disadvantage, there are likely to be more deliberations on this subject and that would lay the framework for withdrawing of equalisation levy in India," said Vikas Vasal, national leader - tax, Grant Thornton Bharat.

The framework has two pillars. The first proposes multinational enterprises with global sales above Rs 20 billion and profitability above 10% will have to allocate 25% of their profit above the 10% threshold to markets they derive revenues from.

Pillar two introduces a global minimum corporate tax rate set at 15%. The new minimum tax rate will apply to companies with revenue above Rs 750 million and it's estimated that this will generate around $150 billion in additional global tax revenues annually.

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