Germany Mulls Digital Tax, But There's a Catch

So, there's some talk happening in Germany about maybe putting a tax on online platforms, you know, companies like Google and Facebook. It sounds like the idea is to charge them maybe 10%, but it's not clear if that's on how much money they make or their profit. Kinda confusing, right?

Here's the thing though, Germany's new digital folks are saying, 'Hold up a sec.' They think if they do this, everyone needs to be on the same page internationally so it's not just a German thing. And, super important, they don't want this tax to make things more expensive for us regular people when we buy stuff online or use these services. They also want to make sure any money they get from this tax actually helps Germany with new tech stuff. Sounds fair enough, I guess?

There's this culture guy, Wolfram Weimer, who apparently said they're working on it. But officials have also said that this hasn't been officially agreed upon by the whole government yet. It's a bit back and forth.

And get this, the head of an industry group called Bitkom is like, 'Whoa, this could really mess things up!' He thinks it could mean higher prices for businesses, the government stuff, and definitely for us customers. He's worried it could slow down Germany getting more digital, which they really need to hurry up and do. He's saying we need less money trouble for digital stuff, not more.

It's all happening while the Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, might be heading to the US to meet with Donald Trump soon. Trump has said in the past he doesn't like other countries taxing American companies for their own gain. So, yeah, lots of moving parts in this whole digital tax conversation. Wonder how it'll all shake out?