Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate he has made of the potential monies that would accrue to the public purse of the introduction of revenue-based taxes on multinational companies.

The UK applies value-added tax to businesses’ supplies of goods and services to UK consumers. Corporation tax is imposed on a business’s profits relating to value generated through UK activities. The government continues to support the principle that a multinational group’s profits should be taxed in the countries in which it generates value. It does not, for example, believe that the profits of a business that undertakes all of its activities in the UK should be taxed in overseas markets in which the business's goods and services might be sold.

The Government has set out its receptiveness to exploring interim measures with like-minded countries, like a tax on revenues, to tax certain digital businesses which generate value from UK users. That would be designed to compensate for unrecognised user-created value pending wider reform of the international corporate tax system. The yield from such a tax would depend on its scope, rate and detailed design.