Italy has started to implement a three percent tax on digital companies, including U.S. tech giants, a move that could draw threats of retaliation from Washington.
The new tax, passed by Italy’ Parliament in late December, is applied to tech companies with annual global revenues worth at least 840 million U.S. dollars or digital services in Italy exceeding about six million U.S. dollars.
The levy will oblige companies such as Facebook, Google and Amazon to pay a three-percent levy on internet transactions.
The Italian scheme is expected to yield about 670 million U.S. dollars a year, as Rome tries to find alternative revenues that will allow it to avoid a scheduled increase in sales tax.
