Humanity will emerge from the pandemic if Silicon Valley pays its “fair” share of taxes, according to an NGO

The G20 said that if Gafams (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft) had paid their true share of taxes, the G20 countries would have collected $ 32 billion in additional taxes, enough to vaccinate all the people on the planet. evening.

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The association is trying to alert the public before Friday’s meeting of the G20, the world’s richest countries, about the issue of solutions to the health crisis.

Tech giants “have markets around the world and reaped billions in profits during the pandemic. If corporate taxes are fair, governments (…) can fund better health systems to end the pandemic and start a recovery,” the NGO said in a press release.

“Many big tech companies are scrambling to pay as little tax as possible,” she argues, citing reports from the European Commission or British media articles.

The accusation is not new, but it comes after a year of a pandemic that has greatly benefited from major platforms and leaders in consumer electronics, as consumers spend more time on the internet than ever before, from working remotely to live streaming videos and music or trading over Internet.

For years some governments have urged their neighbors and international organizations to take action against legal tax evasion facilitated by competing tax systems.

In 2016, the European Commission required Apple to repay € 13 billion in tax benefits for Ireland, which offers a low corporate tax rate.

In 2019, former French Minister of State for Digital Affairs Mounir Mahjoubi estimated the loss of Jafam-related revenue to French tax authorities at € 1 billion.

Under the Donald Trump administration, the United States opposed any coordination, but Joe Biden proposed a 21% tax minimum for multinational corporations.

According to calculations made with the National Millionaires Association, ActionAid estimates the shortfall at $ 21 billion for the G7, $ 8 billion for 27 countries in the European Union or even $ 100 million for Nigeria, “enough to pay 70,000 nurses for a year. “.

Julia Sanchez, general secretary of the NGO, denounces “the system that allows large corporations to collect and sell people’s data, maliciously influence our habits and create new billionaires, with little or no contribution to public services in the countries that generate their profits.”