EU Members ask for a web tax on digital tech giants

The finance ministers of France, Germany, Italy and Spain have written a joint letter to the European Union's presidency and Commission calling for taxes on tech giants' revenues, not just their profits. The four nations want the Commission to produce an "equalization tax" that would make companies pay the equivalent of the corporate tax in the countries where they earn revenue.

France is leading a push to clamp down on the taxation of such companies, but has found support from other countries also frustrated at the low tax they receive under current international rules.

“We should no longer accept that these companies do business in Europe while paying minimal amounts of tax to our treasuries,” the four ministers wrote in a letter seen by Reuters.

The ministers want to put the issue on the table for an EU meeting in Estonia (where the current presidency is located) on September 15th. It's not certain how other EU members will react, but the presidency has already scheduled a talk about making it possible to tax companies wherever they produce value. 

“The amounts raised would aim to reflect some of what these companies should be paying in terms of corporate tax,” the ministers said in the letter.

France has stepped up pressure for EU tax rules after facing legal setbacks trying to obtain payments for taxes on activities in the country.

A French court ruled in July French court ruled that Google, now part of Alphabet Inc, was not liable to pay 1.1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) in back taxes because it had no "permanent establishment" in France and ran its operations there from Ireland.