Bertelsmann Stiftung – a German think-tank – and Copenhagen Economics held a seminar in Berlin 24th October discussing the future of taxation for the digital economy and how to promote the digital- and other knowledge-intensive industries in the EU. In this context, Partner Sigurd Næss-Schmidt recapped the key messages from our study on the Digital Service Tax (DST) and outlined some of the key challenges that needs to be addressed in the context of getting a robust tax system in place which promotes the value creation and innovation at national and global level.  

As is clear from the presentation, we clarify that neither the DST nor the EU Commission’s long-term proposal is an appropriate response. In particular, we underline that the new concept of user contributions as a new tax base or as mechanism for distributing the corporate tax base in the countries where companies operate is a very untested and problematic concept: A lot is at stake, also for countries such as Denmark and Germany which are strongly dependent on corporate tax revenues from industries with strong focus on innovation such as pharma (DK) and the auto industry (Germany). Learn more about the impact on German businesses in our recent study.

Download the presentation from the event

For further details, please contact Sigurd Næss-Schmidt