UK to Crack Down on Digital Firms Tax Evasion If Int'l Efforts Falter - Official

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The UK government is ready to proceed with unilateral measures to tackle the tax evasion of such digital giants as Google and Facebook, if the international efforts on the issue falter, Mel Stride, the financial secretary to the UK Treasury, said.

"We have a strong preference for moving multilaterally in that space but we have said that in the event that that doesn’t move fast enough for us then that this is something we could consider doing unilaterally, or perhaps with a smaller group of other tax authorities," Stride said in an interview with The Guardian newspaper.

He stressed that the action might be taken even despite the possible opposition of the United States, where many digital firms are based.

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The UK government is currently negotiating with other EU member states and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development the introduction of an international digital revenue levy, which will tackle the issue of tax avoidance of big technology firms.

Many countries have accused major digital companies like Amazon, Facebook and Google of tax evasion by sending its profits to countries with low taxation — for example, Ireland and Luxembourg.