It’s not taxes that kill taxes, rather the lack of taxes paid by internet multinationals isn’t helping Quebec.
This is the argument of the Liberal MP for Saint-Laurent, Marwah Rizqy, who reacted to a comment by François Legault yesterday.
“When we get more than 50% taxes, taxes kill taxes, we also have to be able to be competitive,” the Prime Minister said yesterday morning, defending the budget presented by his government on Tuesday.
“What a hollow sentence that’s also wrong,” Ms. Rizqy said in an interview.
Ten million are at stake
Quebec, she says, is leaving $100 million a year on the table by not collecting its share of the 3 percent income tax on Meta (Facebook) and Alphabet (Google).
Worse, the National Assembly has all the resources to legislate now to force the Internet multinationals, the famous GAFAM, to pay their share of the taxes here without waiting for Ottawa to act.
“When Airbnb takes its share of a rental, it doesn’t pay taxes here. When you pay for your Netflix subscription, it’s billed from the Netherlands so it doesn’t end up going into the state coffers,” she illustrates.
If we take Facebook’s case, the MP estimates that Quebec could have received $26 million in 2022.
The company had sales of about $3.8 billion in Canada that year. If the American giant had had to pay 3% of that sum, as recommended by the OECD, it would have come to $115 million.
Quebec accounts for 23% of Canada’s population, Ms. Rizqy recalls, and could have expected around $26 million of that total.
“Google makes three times as much revenue, so it’s easy to imagine a $75 million payout,” she adds.
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