The Federal Tax Service reported that the first hundred large foreign tech- and Internet companies were registered to pay value-added tax when selling virtual goods - the so-called "tax on Google". In the first hundred registered in the Federal Tax Service - Facebook, Apple Distribution International, Google Commerce Ltd, Microsoft Ireland, Netflix International B.V. And Wargaming Group Ltd, Bloomberg, Financial Times, and others.

Statistics are as follows: approximately half of these companies are engaged in the sale of software and computer games, another 30% sell all sorts of intellectual content through the Internet - e-books, digitized music and movies. Another 15% of companies provide trading platforms and various services (online booking, search engines, etc.). The value added tax is paid quarterly. This means that before April 25 the first payments from foreign companies will go to the budget.

The law on which foreigners must pay VAT on the sale of electronic services, the State Duma adopted last summer, equaling, according to the deputies, to the EU countries, South Korea and Japan. "Tax on Google" a new fee began to be called, because it was this company that first notified its users about the need to pay VAT. Later "signals" went to Apple users. Paddle.com and Berend Universal software developers, publisher of computer games Innova, Turkish payment service Payby.me and even football club Chelsea, which is engaged in the distribution of video content, have also registered with the tax service.

Some companies, which the law does not oblige to register with the Federal Tax Service, did it on their own initiative, "without waiting for peritonitis" - for example, the popular taxi service Uber B.V. entered. Until now, the company's partners in Russia paid VAT on their own, and Uber then reimbursed them for expenses. But another option is possible, when the VAT is made by the foreign supplier company itself. The FTS, in fact, is not very important, who, it is important, how much. And how much is still not very clear. According to preliminary calculations, the budgetary benefit of the "tax on Google" should be about 10 billion rubles a year. More precisely, it will be possible to say on the basis of the results of the first declaration campaign.
Another thing is not entirely clear: how conscientiously foreign companies will pay taxes. To minimize payments, you can, theoretically, sell your services to a foreign entrepreneur or transfer part of the sales to daughters that are not registered with the Federal Tax Service.

The Federal Tax Service, in its turn, already warns about multilevel control - not only the reporting and data of open surveys will be tracked by tax specialists, but also information coming from banks, payment systems, Russian mobile operators, and point monitoring will be introduced. If there are discrepancies between the declared turnover and the real ones, the representatives of the company will be invited to "talk".

It is not excluded that some companies will try to compensate for the tax by raising the prices for their content, that is, shifting the payment of VAT to the end user. While it does not raise the price of Apple content, it is the VAT company and Wargaming (the developer of the popular game World of Tanks) who is paying the VAT himself. But Google users are reported to have to pay for services already with tax included.