Who Really Pays Google Taxes?

The chairman of the tax committee of the Verkhovna Rada reported that thanks to the “Google tax” it was possible to attract about 76 million dollars to the state budget. This amount was supposedly paid by 53 large companies, which from January 1 pay 20% VAT for the provision of electronic services.

However, as you know, VAT is actually paid by the final consumer as part of the price of the good or service. This also applies to the “Google tax”.

From January 1, 2022, many services that are subject to this tax have informed Ukrainian users about the increase in the cost of their services by the same 20%. In particular, Ukrainians began to pay more for the services of Meta, Google, Amazon, eBay, Adobe, Apple and others.

Even those Ukrainians who do not use the services of the named companies, still felt the impact of the tax on their wallets. After all, the business that advertises on Facebook and YouTube had to increase the cost of its goods and services accordingly, having included an increase in the price of advertising.

So actually saying that the company paid the “Google tax” is incorrect. These $76 million were paid by end consumers, ordinary Ukrainians, and not by the companies themselves.