BERLIN, May 29 (Reuters) - Germany is considering a 10% tax on large online platforms like Alphabet’s Google (GOOGL.O), opens new tab and Meta’s Facebook (META.O), opens new tab, its new minister of state for culture told magazine Stern, in a move likely to heighten trade tensions with the Trump administration.
Culture Minister of State Wolfram Weimer said officials were drafting a legislative proposal while also seeking talks with platform operators that he accused of “cunning tax evasion” to explore alternative solutions like voluntary contributions.
“These corporations do billions in business in Germany with extremely high profit margins and benefit enormously from the country’s media and cultural output as well as its infrastructure — but they pay hardly any taxes, invest too little, and give far too little back to society,” he told Stern in an interview published on Thursday.
Alphabet and Meta did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.
Oddly enough, this guy Wolfram Weimer is a die-hard right-winger. So I was quite flabbergasted when I first read the headline, and still am doubting whether he really intends to follow through with this or rather is only floating this idea in order to introduce another bargaining chip in the trade negotiations with Trump.
I would expect surface level nationalism from a right winger and Google is very much a foreign interest in Germany.
Ah u know, I think we are about to see two types of right-wingers, the we have to hold out against trump to be strong ourselves and the suck up to trump types. Both created by trump in their current form. I honestly dont rlly care who said it in this case cuz the idea being out there is gonna make some waves regardless of who started saying it.