Social media giant Facebook has agreed with the French government to pay € 106 million in taxes for a ten-year period starting in 2009, Facebook said on Monday.
The company has also agreed to pay 50% more taxes for the current year.
Taxing US technology giants on income in the country where they were earned has long been a source of tension between the United States and France. Many of these companies have offices in the European Union (EU) in low-tax countries.
“We take our tax obligations seriously, pay the required taxes in all markets in which we operate, and work closely with tax administrations around the world to ensure that all applicable tax laws are complied with and all disputes are resolved,” said a Facebook spokesman in France.
The company said in a statement that since 2018, Facebook has changed its sales structure so that “revenue from advertisers supported by our teams in France is recorded in that country.”
“This year we will pay 8.46 million euros in income tax, which is almost 50% more than last year,” Facebook said.
“We have also agreed with the tax authorities for the period from 2009 to 2018, according to which we will pay 106 million euros,” the statement said.
Disputes between France and the United States over the digital tax have escalated to the point where the United States announced in July a 25% tariff on French products of $ 1.3 billion, reflecting a tax that is even considered unfair to US companies. However, the US decided to wait with the collection of tariffs to give time to resolve the dispute.
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