Tech giants Google, Amazon and Facebook may soon start paying value-added and other taxes in Israel.
Many major tech companies maintain large R&D facilities in the country. While the state reaps the rewards of income taxes on the salaries they pay in Israel, other taxes, especially value-added tax on sales of products or online ad services, are not collected. The corporations’ overseas listing and the difficulty in ascertaining the geographic location of a business activity conducted online placed these companies outside the bounds of existing Israeli tax regulations.
In a document published Monday, the Tax Authority lays out new rules for taxation of overseas companies offering services to Israelis, such as the online advertisements targeting Israeli audiences on Google and Facebook.
Among the new rules: a company will be considered to have a permanent presence in Israel — and thus subject to value-added tax and other obligations — if it has an online presence targeting Israeli consumers, has representatives seeking to find Israeli customers or has a web presence tailored to the Israeli market.
It's not (only) about you.
Supporting The Times of Israel isn’t a transaction for an online service, like subscribing to Netflix. The ToI Community is for people like you who care about a common good: ensuring that balanced, responsible coverage of Israel continues to be available to millions across the world, for free.
Sure, we'll remove all ads from your page and you'll unlock access to some excellent Community-only content. But your support gives you something more profound than that: the pride of joining something that really matters.
Join the Times of Israel Community
Join our Community
Already a member? Sign in to stop seeing this
You're a dedicated reader
We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
That’s why we started the Times of Israel - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Thank you,
David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel
Join Our Community
Join Our Community
Already a member? Sign in to stop seeing this