Budget 2017: More online services may face 'Google tax'

To bring more digital transactions into the tax net in the Budget 2017 to curb tax avoidance by MNCs

The government is likely to expand the scope of the equalisation levy, the so-called “Google tax”, to bring more digital transactions into the tax net in the upcoming budget to curb tax avoidance by multinational firms. 

Online sales of goods and services; downloading of software, songs, movies and books; and online consumption of news are among the services that the government may consider for the levy.

“Internationally the trend is to bring more digital transactions into the tax net as multinational companies end up avoiding taxes. It was just a beginning last year when we introduced a 6% tax on