Israel prepares to send tax bills to Facebook, Google: report

Israel is planning to send tax bills within a year to internet companies Google and Facebook, financial newspaper TheMarker reported on Wednesday, joining efforts by several countries, including the European Union, to get the internet giants to pay more tax.

TheMarker cited Moshe Asher, chairman of Israel’s Tax Authority, as saying work on preparing tax bills had already begun. The authority is now working on figuring out how to make its calculations.

It will have to decide what percentage of the companies’ profits from their Israeli customers should be taxable in Israel.

“Ultimately, taxes can be charged based on their operations in Israel,” Asher told TheMarker. “Our goal is to obtain as much data as we can, even if many of these figures are held outside of Israel. Within a year we’ll issue these companies tax bills.”

A spokeswoman for the authority confirmed Asher’s comments, while Asher declined to speak to Reuters.

Google and Facebook were not immediately available for comment.