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   From: burfordTjustice@tues.uk   
      
   You Think Google Search Is Free? Austria Seeks to Tax It Anyway   
      
      
   Social Democrats eye levy on ads, taxes on digital ‘barter’    
      
   Austria says 1 billion euros lost to corporate tax loopholes   
   Austria is seeking ways to make digital services like Alphabet Inc.’s Google   
   or Facebook Inc. pay taxes for transactions with the nation’s internet   
   users, trying to plug gaps in a tax system still designed for brick-and-mortar   
   business.   
      
   The most ambitious part of the plan targets the business models of Twitter   
   Inc., Google or Facebook: The tacit pact under which searching, liking,   
   posting and tweeting remains free as long as users let the companies feed   
   usage data into algorithms that    
   help tailor advertising that can be aimed at the most likely buyers.   
      
   That arrangement is a form of bartering, and a value-added tax could be   
   imposed on such transactions just as the levies are extended in other parts of   
   the economy, said Andreas Schieder, the parliamentary head of Austrian   
   Chancellor Christian Kern’s    
   Social Democrats, which govern in a coalition with the conservative People’s   
   Party.   
      
   “The business transaction that’s going on here is that users are paying   
   with their personal data,” Schieder told journalists in Vienna. “The   
   business model of those internet companies is based on massive revenues that   
   are generated with the help    
   of those data.”   
      
   Raising more taxes from digital businesses is part of a broader plan to amend   
   the country’s corporate tax code. The package also includes closing   
   loopholes that allow “aggressive tax planning” and corporate tax   
   avoidance, which cost the Alpine    
   country as much as 1.5 billion euros ($1.6 billion) a year, about a fifth of   
   its annual corporate tax revenue, Schieder said.   
      
   The Social Democrats’ plan has two other elements targeted at internet   
   companies: It would extend the Austrian tax on advertising revenue to digital   
   formats, and it would tax purely digital services that are acquired by   
   Austrian customers from    
   companies with no physical presence in the country.   
      
   Schieder said the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has   
   made proposals for calculating and implementing such taxes, especially in its   
   Base Erosion and Profit Shifting project.   
      
   “We need a new approach to make sure that taxes are paid where revenue and   
   profit is made,” Schieder said. “The OECD has made practical suggestions   
   how to define digital establishments for tax purposes.”   
      
   The proposals will need the agreement of conservative Finance Minister Hans   
   Joerg Schelling. The goal to raise tax revenue from digital companies and to   
   tax international companies “more efficiently” is part of the   
   government’s policy update agreed    
   in January.   
      
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