France to go ahead with its own tax on digital companies next year

France and Germany agreed on a scaled-back version of the tax in a bid to overcome significant opposition to the plan among some of their EU neighbours

France will forge ahead with its own tax on digital giants in 2019 if the EU fails to agree on how to get the likes of Google and Facebook to pay more tax in Europe, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Thursday.
 

Le Maire told France 2 television he would give himself “until March” to reach a deal with other EU members on a digital tax, nicknamed the GAFA tax after Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon. If the talks fail, “we will do it at the national level in 2019: we will tax digital giants if European states do