France is getting download tax for content providers (€0.055/GB) for data delivered to French users

France is getting download tax for content providers (€0.055/GB) for data delivered to French users | ResetEra Thread starter dex3108 Start date Today at 4:28 PM Status Not open for further replies. Oct 26, 2017 27,157 #1 If i understand correctly every company that offers content for download will now need to pay for every GB downloaded by French users. Google Translate Summary (if somebody from France translate is i will edit post) This amendment from the Socialist and affiliated group proposes the introduction of a tax on digital data producers. It aims to restore fairness between the taxation applied to established players in the economy and that applied to globalized players in the digital economy, who largely escape traditional tax mechanisms. This tax is based on a non-relocatable tax base: internet data transmitted to users. It is paid by data producers and collected by the government through measurements taken by internet service providers.

It relies on existing technologies and a methodology developed with industry specialists. The majority of this tax would be paid by major international tech and digital players, representing a large share of the data transmitted to French households.

At a rate of €0.055 per gigabyte, a revenue of €10 billion is expected. This model does not raise privacy concerns since the data is never accessed (only its quantity is assessed), and it also has an environmental benefit as it will naturally encourage data providers to adopt the most advanced technologies for compression and optimization of data volumes. Reviving the French economy requires rebalancing the contribution of different economic actors to the national tax effort. On one hand, there is the established economy, comprised of businesses, industries, and the sale of goods and services. It occupies premises, employs workers in France, and finances its direct or indirect use of public services, roads, hospitals, schools, civil defense, the police, and our national defense… because its tax base is physically located within the country. On the other hand, a deterritorialized economy, it sells to the same customers, uses the same infrastructure, benefits from the same public services, but its tax base is a self-declared profit, that is to say an accounting entry whose location it decides according to its interests. Insofar as this new digital economy is characterized by its ability to operate across borders, with high margins and by marketing only intangible services or even, seemingly, free for the consumer, it is very difficult to bring these players into the scope of traditional taxation, justifying the creation of a specific contribution. The idea is to use as a tax base a proxy of their activity which is the quantity of data (the "gigabytes") sent by the actors concerned (the GAFAM and others) to French consumers. ARCEP estimates that data traffic sent to subscribers of internet service providers (ISPs) in France amounts to 200 billion gigabytes per year. This contribution would mainly concern the very large players on the internet: Google, Meta, Amazon, Netflix and Akamai (cloud player) alone representing half of the data traffic measured by ARCEP. VLC Makers say that this will cost them over 1M euros per year that they don't have because they are non profit. According to Steam Stats in past 7 days French users downloaded 62.7PB That is 62700000 x 0.055€ = 3,448,500€ So Valve alone will potentially need to pay France €3.5M per week and that is like €180M per year (if i did math correctly, pleace correct me if i am wrong :D). Feb 24, 2024 1,663 Oct 25, 2017 1,666 Oct 26, 2017 13,810 #4 Is this the thing that South Korea has? Their internet providers really hate high bandwidth services, since data transfer is taxed. Jun 10, 2025 1,060 Dec 12, 2024 3,385 Dest Has seen more 10s than EA ever will Nov 4, 2017 2,458 #9 I had no idea this was going on. how does this relate to torrents? I don't think sites are going to start blocking France, but products in france are going to start getting an additional fee added to their transactions. Jun 15, 2018 6,270 Oct 25, 2017 37,396 Oct 28, 2017 51,359 Oct 29, 2017 29,403 Oct 27, 2017 7,102 Oct 27, 2017 4,074 Dec 12, 2017 1,833 Sep 1, 2025 2,988 Jun 10, 2018 13,228 Ra Rap Genius Oct 25, 2017 9,817 Jan 25, 2018 14,037 Oct 25, 2017 14,002 Jul 16, 2019 19,464 Spain Feb 14, 2024 7,050 #24 I dont see this actually ever actually being approved. Imagine Sony having to pay 10€ each and every time someone downloads or redownloads GTA VI. Not to mention the updates Helix Mayor of Clown Town Jun 8, 2019 30,403 Oct 25, 2017 35,304 #27 I don't understand what the point of this policy is. lol I get taxing digital services properly because they're multinationals that escape paying local taxes, but paying per gb downloaded is insane. lol BY2K Membero Americo Oct 27, 2017 7,102 #29 France needs to find more ways to fund the government and social services cause they're already knee-deep in costs. Which….this ain't it. Oct 25, 2017 5,362 #31 This is absolutely insane, what? Was this passed already? Helix Mayor of Clown Town Jun 8, 2019 30,403 #32 ok this is a proposal from a minority in the assembly lol might as well ignore Oct 25, 2017 2,957 Oct 25, 2017 6,914 OP OP Oct 26, 2017 27,157 #35 This is absolutely insane, what? Was this passed already? According to post few posts above it still needs to get approved but it passed voting. Oct 25, 2017 35,304 #36 France needs to find more ways to fund the government and social services cause they're already knee-deep in costs. Which….this ain't it. They're pretending downloads are like a utility and that companies are making profit on gigs downloaded. I can't imagine someone thinking this is how the world works. lol Jul 21, 2023 2,514 Oct 27, 2017 7,102 #39 This is absolutely insane, what? Was this passed already? No, this is a proposal from members of the socialist party and affiliated groups. Thread title is incorrect in wording making it seem like it's approved, but as much as people are saying "don't overreact", I just want to make this clear - This is a stupid proposal that cannot work without massive caveats. Dec 31, 2018 20,490 #40 There are a lot of crazy taxes, so why not also tax internet traffic. But more than 5 cent per GB is crazy. Also, a pretty bad idea to go alone on this route. Feb 17, 2022 11,777 Oct 25, 2017 14,002 Oct 14, 2023 811 Xwing This guy are sick of the unshakeable slayer Nov 11, 2017 13,648 Oct 25, 2017 2,403 Oct 25, 2017 5,362 Oct 27, 2017 5,350 Helix Mayor of Clown Town Jun 8, 2019 30,403 #50 change the title, shit is misleading.... it's an amendment proposal, not something that is happening Status Not open for further replies.