75 % of Germans support a new digital tax to be introduced by the EU in order to make sure companies like Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook pay a minimal tax on their revenue in Europe, according to a new poll from Emnid.
 
German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz (SPD) will meet his European counterparts in Brussels on 4 December. With the SPD polling numbers down domestically, backing a tax on digital services would be a move popular among would-be SPD voters, 77 % of whom responded are in favour of it.

Christoph Schott, Avaaz Campaign Director says: “No regular citizen gets away with moving their wages offshore like Amazon and Apple do, we all have to pay taxes. Olaf Scholz and Bruno Le Maire need to be Robin Hood and Little John and end this tax robbery by internet giants. Not sometime in 2021 but right now.”

The digital tax is expected to bring 5 billion Euros per year as soon as it introduced. An Avaaz campaign has just gathered 560.000 signatures from citizens calling on Europe to tax tech giants.

The poll is here : https://secure.avaaz.org/robinhoodtax
ENDS
Please contact Daniel.Boese@avaaz.org for questions

Useful facts:

• Apple may have paid as little as 0.7% tax in the European Union (EU) from 2015-2017. Applying the range of estimated tax rates paid in the EU from 2015-2017, a recent report estimates that Apple has avoided paying between €4 billion and €21 billion in tax to EU tax collection agencies from 2015-2017. ( source )
• In 2017 in the UK, Amazon paid £1.7m in taxes despite profits almost trebling to £72.3m ( source ); zero in federal taxes in the US in 2017 ( source )
• Amazon paid just €16.5m in tax on European revenues of €21.6bn reported through Luxembourg in 2016 ( source ) .
• The measure would only apply to companies with global revenues of €750m and €50m in the EU.