Finance minister says U.S. tech firms haven’t been paying their fair share

(Marketingmagazine.com.my) – Indonesia will chase back taxes from technology firms Facebook Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google unit, Twitter Inc. and Yahoo Inc. after allegedly finding proof that these companies have been avoiding corporate taxes for years in the country, a government official said.

Finance Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro said that Google, Facebook, and Twitter have been incorporated in Indonesia since last week and now can be subjected to local taxes, after years running businesses as representative offices that enjoyed lower taxes than traditional corporations.

“These companies have been getting many businesses here, especially from advertising, and we are not sure that they’ve been paying the taxes correctly in accordance with the amount of businesses they’ve earned from Indonesia,” he said.

Southeast Asia’s largest economy aims to obtain “billions of dollars” in alleged back taxes and is ready to scuffle in a legal process that may take years to resolve, the finance minister said.

Brodjonegoro said Indonesia is following the steps of fellow G-20 members such as the U.K., France and Italy in pursuing back taxes from U.S. technology companies.

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