High Court orders govt to raise taxes on Google, YouTube, and Facebook

[bête noire]

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The High Court has ordered the government to levy taxes on internet-based international service providers like Facebook, Google and YouTube

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The High Court on Thursday ordered the government to levy tax and other duties on the revenue earned in the country by Google, Facebook, YouTube and Amazon.

The taxes and duties would be levied on all types of transactions including online advertisements, domain sales, and licence fees.

A High Court bench comprised of Justice Moyeenul Islam Chowdhury and Justice Md Ashraful Kamal also issued a rule asking the concerned authorities why a directive should not be issued to exact the revenue from these and other internet-based service providers.

The High Court named the respondents as the secretaries of finance, law, information, and posts and telecommunications; the Bangladesh Bank governor; the National Board of Revenue chairman; the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission chairman; and the Bangladesh Newspapers Owners Association president.

The authorities of Google, Facebook, and YouTube were also listed.

As per the order, the government has been instructed to collect tax and other duties from search engines Google and Yahoo, e-commerce site Amazon, social networking website Facebook, video-sharing site YouTube, and all international internet platforms.

The court also asked the government to form a committee comprising experts to assess the amount of their transactions over the past 10 years and submit a report by June 25, ahead of the next hearing set for June 28.

The writ petition was filed by a group of lawyers on Monday.

Source: https://www.dhakatribune.com/business/regulations/2018/04/12/govt-taxes-google-youtube-facebook/

 

[bête noire]

Excellent decision by the HC. These web services earn so much in BD from Advertisements and take so much money away yet pay virtually no tax! About damn time!

The court also asked the government to form a committee comprising experts to assess the amount of their transactions over the past 10 years and submit a report by June 25, ahead of the next hearing set for June 28.

Good on HC to go over the last 10 years transactions too. One of the happiest surprise on sudden laws.

 

[AZADPAKISTAN2009]

Countries should demand to know how much revenue is generated from their National IP or views of Advertisement and then demand TAX on that revenue

Every country of world have a Address of IP given for their country

• Get figures for Advertisement money collected for show advertisement
  
• Collect Tax figures from revenue

Very simple item if company does not gives Tax or maintain data in that country they should be banned from operation

• Google Should give % of Profit it generates from Ads about Pakistani Searches
• Facebook should give indication of how many users are logging from Pakistan and what % of advertisement is shown to Pakistani customers
  
• What kind of sale activity is taking place?
  
• Sales Tax on Amazon Shipment to Pakistan
• What kind of Damage is Youtube doing to Pakistan's music industry and TV media? Need to be taxed

 

[Chhatrapati]

Excellent decision by the HC. These web services earn so much in BD from Advertisements and take so much money away yet pay virtually no tax! About damn time!

Local advertisers i.e anyone who sells their stuff in BD will be hit and in turn, they will raise the prices to manage the extra tax. The local people bear the tax.

 

[bête noire]

Local advertisers i.e anyone who sells their stuff in BD will be hit and in turn, they will raise the prices to manage the extra tax. The local people bear the tax.

Nope. Not everything works in as simple as you make it out to be. It'll hit the advertisers pocket like it should. Not everyone raises prices just because they start making a little less money than they usually are. If they have money for so much adds then they can afford to pay tax for that adds. Tax is small percentage of total advertisement cost.

By your logic, why do you even tax any companies at all? And if some companies do raise prices, thats fine. Since either way it would go to government who would spend it on the people. Just because you tax someone doesn't mean it always is bad for the people.

Also in this particular case, advertisers won't be paying much more since it's google and other services that aren't paying their taxes. Google isn't going to raise ad price just because it's going to have take a little less profit home.

 

[Chhatrapati]

Not everyone raises prices just because they start making a little less money than they usually are. If they have money for so much adds then they can afford to pay tax for that adds. Tax is small percentage of total advertisement cost.

That's because you don't know how big corporations work. They will try hard not to mend their ways to avoid a slump in profit from ad revenue. Either the increase will affect your ad market or it extra cost will be beared by the consumer.

By your logic, why do you even tax any companies at all? And if some companies do raise prices, thats fine. Since either way it would go to government who would spend it on the people. Just because you tax someone doesn't mean it always is bad for the people.

It's not my logic boi. When tere is an increase in tax on consumer goods it will affect the consumers. It's been done in EU and other countries, only that the cost is beared by consumers. The same is done in India, end result amazon, flipkart etc... increased prices.

Also in this particular case, advertisers won't be paying much more since it's google and other services that aren't paying their taxes. Google isn't going to raise ad price just because it's going to have take a little less profit home.

That you can hope, google doesn't raise the price for a slot.

 

[bête noire]

That's because you don't know how big corporations work. They will try hard not to mend their ways to avoid a slump in profit from ad revenue. Either the increase will affect your ad market or it extra cost will be beared by the consumer.

It's not my logic boi. When tere is an increase in tax on consumer goods it will affect the consumers. It's been done in EU and other countries, only that the cost is beared by consumers. The same is done in India, end result amazon, flipkart etc... increased prices.

That you can hope, google doesn't raise the price for a slot.

Slump profit in ad revenue is google or facebooks worry, not consumers. And with the rising ad market in BD, it's unlikely the tax would hit them much anyway. As I said, they don't pay taxes and they need to, just like any other business or corporations. And the money that they pay will be used by the govt on the people. So even if it goes completely as you say, which is very unlikely, then the money goes to government and gets spent on the country.

 

[UKBengali]

That's because you don't know how big corporations work. They will try hard not to mend their ways to avoid a slump in profit from ad revenue. Either the increase will affect your ad market or it extra cost will be beared by the consumer.

It's not my logic boi. When tere is an increase in tax on consumer goods it will affect the consumers. It's been done in EU and other countries, only that the cost is beared by consumers. The same is done in India, end result amazon, flipkart etc... increased prices.

That you can hope, google doesn't raise the price for a slot.

Do you know anything about BD tax take? It is only 11% of GDP and
needs to rise. BD people are not being taxed enough!
Even if all the ad taxes goes as higher prices to consumer, it will raise
government revenue that can be spent on necessary sectors.

 

[Chhatrapati]

Do you know anything about BD tax take? It is only 11% of GDP and
needs to rise. BD people are not being taxed enough!
Even if all the ad taxes goes as higher prices to consumer, it will raise
government revenue that can be spent on necessary sectors.

TF are you talking about?

If raising tax alone will increase government revenue then there will be a lot of Singapore's around here.

Slump profit in ad revenue is google or facebooks worry, not consumers. And with the rising ad market in BD, it's unlikely the tax would hit them much anyway. As I said, they don't pay taxes and they need to, just like any other business or corporations. And the money that they pay will be used by the govt on the people. So even if it goes completely as you say, which is very unlikely, then the money goes to government and gets spent on the country.

Err! I think you didn't understand, your entire point is based on the assumption that google and facebook don't increase slot charges for each advertisement. If google and other e-com social medias decide to bear the cost, then it's good for consumers.

 

[UKBengali]

TF are you talking about?

If raising tax alone will increase government revenue then there will be a lot of Singapore's around here.


.

Learn and then post next time.

 

[Nilgiri]

Local advertisers i.e anyone who sells their stuff in BD will be hit and in turn, they will raise the prices to manage the extra tax. The local people bear the tax.

Dude don't intervene in communist feelz. Let the enemy do what it feels is best, especially when its a bad thing.

They are feeble minded people, they want wealth but they have no idea how to create it and sustain it...their "govt" is only all too happy to act as middle-man agent in the void afforded by these feelz.

 

[TopCat]

These companies are paying taxes to the United States government but not paying a single penny to the country they generate the revenue from. Any company which sells service to Bangladesh should pay taxes too and internet giants are no exception.
I dont know why high court did not include youtube data (not ad revenue) which earns the most by selling contents and data to the ISP companies. May be the lawyer was no aware of that. But its a good start.

 

[Flynn Swagmire]

What if we install a national level adblocking firewall?

 

[Tanveer666]

BD people are not being taxed enough!

Its kind of a slippery slope; People complain that they enjoy no facilities for the tax they pay while the gov. complains that tax collection aren't enough to justify the said services! That being said, gov. is rectifying the situation and people are more conscious about paying tax.

Local advertisers i.e anyone who sells their stuff in BD will be hit and in turn, they will raise the prices to manage the extra tax. The local people bear the tax.

I doubt online shop owners would increase the price simply due to they have to pay bit more on advertising;

E commerce is still relatively a new phenomenon in BD, the market and the demand for it is still growing, increasing prices (for this reason) at this stage would be suicidal as it would turn away many potential and current buyers.

 

[Centaur]

Do you know anything about BD tax take? It is only 11% of GDP and
needs to rise. BD people are not being taxed enough!
Even if all the ad taxes goes as higher prices to consumer, it will raise
government revenue that can be spent on necessary sectors.

Lots of peoples hide their Income and don't pay tax .
However we need more transparency ,we have to make sure that our tax money aren't devouring by politicians and their sidekicks .
If peoples will be beneficial from tax, then they will pay it willingly IMO.