A new UK digital services tax aimed at giants such as Google and Amazon will be narrowly targeted on UK-generated revenues from April 2020.
Chancellor Philip Hammond said in the Budget the established tech giants will bear the burden of the tax, which is expected to raise £400m a year and will only be paid by companies with sales of at least £500m a year in global revenues.
The chancellor said progress on a new global agreement was the ‘best solution but progress is painfully slow' and the Government would continue to work with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to seek a global solution.
It was ‘only right that the global giants paid their fair share towards our public services', he added.
