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bne Tech
April 19, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 25
study by iKS-Consulting revealed.
In 2018, the country's cloud services segment grew by 25% y/y to RUB68.4bn ($1.1bn), and about 70% of it is accounted for by SaaS – Software as a Service, or programmes that are operated from the cloud rather than being installed on a personal computer.
multinational companies
Nelly Tomchikova in Prague
Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis plans to impose a special digital tax on multinationals, as quoted by daily Lidove Noviny on April 13. “We will implement a digital tax for multinational compa- nies which do business in the Czech Republic but do not reside here,” Babis said.
He added that the level is still being discussed with Finance Minister Alena Schillerova. “We have been discussing a budget every week several hours. She has the task of looking for savings in all sectors. Of course, we are also talking about income,” Babis said.
This year, the state budget is expected to end with
the next few years and could reach RUB155bn ($3.4bn) by the end of 2022, according to iKS- Consulting.
Foreign customers' share has been growing and currently stands at 5.1% for SaaS and at 2.2% for the IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) segment, which covers various types of cloud data storage.
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Czech PM Andrej Babis insists on taxing digital
Meanwhile, Russia's cloud services industry is projected to grow by roughly 23% a year over
a deficit of CZK40bn (€1.6bn), despite a surplus of CZK2.9bn (€113.4mn) in 2018, the second best result since 1996.
Babis already announced his support for the in- troduction of a special tax for internet giants like Facebook, Apple and Google at the EU and the League of Arab States summit in Egypt in February 2019. “The digital tax certainly yes. I also supported this at the European Council because transnational companies that do business with us do not pay enough taxes,” Babis said, adding that the finance minister has been watching Austria that plans to implement its own digital tax very closely.