The European Commission has this morning (Wednesday) published proposals for two Directives aimed at addressing the issue of how digital companies are taxed in the European Union. The taxation of digital activities has been the subject of extensive work at international level through the OECD as part of the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) process with the most recent report from the OECD on tax challenges arising from digitalisation concluding that there is as yet no international consensus on how best to address the issue.
Commenting on the proposals, Minister Donohoe stated: ‘I note the Commission proposals published today and believe that this should to be seen in the context of the OECD report of last week. As usual, Ireland will work with other Member States to critically assess the proposals from the Commission. This is the beginning of a process that will go on for some time in parallel with the work of the OECD. It is noteworthy that the OECD report did not find consensus among countries on this issue.”
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