The French National Assembly has approved an amendment to the budget bill that would introduce a data tax on large technology companies. According to the document, giants such as Google, Meta, Netflix, Amazon, TikTok and others could pay a fixed amount for each gigabyte of content delivered to French users.
The French National Assembly has approved an amendment to the budget bill that would introduce a data tax on large technology companies. According to the document, giants such as Google, Meta, Netflix, Amazon, TikTok and others could pay a fixed amount for each gigabyte of content delivered to French users.
This is evidenced by the results of the voting of deputies, published in the minutes of the French National Assembly, writes Tom's Hardware.
The initiative was initiated by Socialist MP Laurent Lardy. The proposed tax rate is 0.055 euros (about $0.06) per gigabyte of transmitted data. Given that about 200 billion GB of traffic passes through French Internet providers every year, the government expects to raise up to 10 billion euros ($11.2 billion) annually. The amendment also limits the maximum amount of the fee: no more than 15% of a company's revenue in France or 2% of its global turnover.
"This amendment provides for the introduction of a tax on digital data flows transmitted by content providers, which must be paid by the providers themselves. The revenue from it is estimated at 10 billion euros," noted Laurent Lardy.
Local internet service providers, including Orange, Free and Iliad, will be involved in measuring data volumes. They will collect statistics on sending companies and submit quarterly reports to the tax administration under the supervision of telecom regulator Arcep. The norm will apply not only to the platforms themselves, but also to content delivery networks (CDNs) such as Akamai.
To accusations that tech companies will pass on the new costs to end consumers, Lardi responded skeptically: “The speaker continues to claim that taxes will be passed on to consumers. However, I don’t understand how a tax can be passed on to Facebook, Instagram or TikTok users, since these services are free.”
It should be noted that the amendment was passed by a narrow margin of 11 votes to 10, despite opposition from the government and the finance committee. The document still needs to be approved by the French Senate to become law.
If the law goes into effect, French gamers may have to pay an additional €11 to download GTA 6, which will take up 210 GB .
