European Union: Commission publishes digital services tax proposal on revenues derived from certain digital services (DST)

On 21 March 2018, the European Commission issued its proposal for a Council Directive on the “common system of a digital services tax on revenues resulting from the provision of certain digital services”. The proposal aims to expand the list of taxable revenues to include gains obtained from offering digital intermediary services facilitating the sale of goods and services, selling advertising space and the transmission of data generated by users. The revenues obtained from the listed activities would be taxed at the rate of 3% in the Member State in which the entity has a presence if the company has a global revenue above EUR 750 million and revenue in the EU single market of EUR 50 million.