Definition: GAFA

The term GAFA is used to refer to the giants of the web. Behind this acronym are Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon, which between them have a combined market capitalization of $ 3,441 billion in August 2018, which is almost half that of the top 300 stocks in the eurozone, which represent $ 6,690 billion.

To this group of four, also nicknamed the Big Four, is often added Microsoft, GAFA then becoming GAFAM.

But GAFA is not the only acronym, we also speak of NATU (Netflix, Airbnb, Tesla Uber) and BATX in China (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, Xiaomi)

GAFAs at the heart of the tax news

During 2018, GAFAs are at the center of the debates. Indeed, although generating considerable business in Europe, these companies pay, for the moment, little or no taxes.

In March 2018, the European Commission proposed a tax at 3% of the turnover of these giants to limit tax evasion. To date, among the 27, only France says it is ready to apply it and this, as of January 1, 2019, until a global solution is put in place. According to Bruno Le Maire, this tax would allow the recovery of almost 500 million euros, with the tax targeting, among other things, advertising revenues and the resale of personal data.

In the rest of the world, the United Kingdom and Singapore have already put in place rules for taxing GAFAs and projects are underway in Italy and Spain.