Meta's decision to step back from a news payment agreement has led Australian authorities to reconsider their regulations on tech giants. The Computer and Communications Industry Association has labelled the Australian news media bargaining incentive as coercive, requiring U.S. firms like Meta to subsidize local media. Despite Meta reporting $42 million in taxes for 2023 on $1.4 billion in ad revenue, Australian authorities suspect they accrued much more revenue, approximately $5 billion, mainly funneled through tax-favorable Ireland. This regulatory push dates back to 2018 but faced opposition from the Trump administration.
Members of the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) responded to a request by the Office of the United States Trade Representative for 'comments to assist in reviewing and identifying unfair trade practices and initiating all necessary actions to investigate harm from non-reciprocal trade arrangements'. The comments describe Australia's news media bargaining incentive as a 'proposed coercive and discriminatory tax that requires U.S. technology companies to subsidize Australian media companies'.
The Australian government did actually also look to enact this in 2018, to ensure that Meta and others would be forced to pay their fair share under local tax rules. But the previous Trump administration opposed it, saying that it would not stand for U.S. companies facing higher tax obligations.
Meta reportedly paid $42 million in Australian taxes in 2023, based on $1.4 billion in local ad revenue. But local authorities believe that Meta actually brought in more like $5 billion in local revenue in the period, with the majority of that being funneled through its offices in Ireland, where it pays a much lower tax rate.
Collection
[
|
...
]