Postponement: Italy delays ‘Google tax’ until July

Launch of Internet tax, sometimes dubbed 'Google tax' will be postponed until July 1, 2014, says PM Letta’s office.

ROME: Italy delayed the start of its planned Internet tax until July 2014, approved billions of euros in business and welfare measures and extended a ban on media cross-ownership in a final package of year-end legislation. The launch of an Internet tax, sometimes dubbed the “Google tax”, passed this week by parliament, will be postponed until July, 1, 2014, Prime Minister Enrico Letta’s office said in a statement. The tax, designed to ensure that companies that advertise and sell online in Italy do so only through companies with a tax presence in the country, has been criticized by the European Commission, which expressed doubts on its legality before it was approved in parliament. The delay was contained in the “Milleproroghe”(“thousand extensions”), a decree used by Italian government to pack in miscellaneous pieces of legislation that must be approved before the start of the New Year.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 29^th, 2013.

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