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WORLD NEWS Wednesday 31 OctOber 2018

European tech leaders warn against EU digital services tax

By MIKE CORDER tax firms that make profits tax would target U.K.-gen-
Associated Press on their territory even if they erated revenues of specific
THE HAGUE, Netherlands aren't physically present. digital platform business
(AP) — Technology com- The proposal was seen as a models. Hammond, like the
pany chiefs have warned way of making tech giants EU, said he would prefer an
that a digital services tax like Google and Facebook international solution.
proposed by the European pay more taxes. In their letter, tech CEOs
Union would hinder inno- Brussels argues that corpo- warned that the EU pro-
vation and hurt economic rate tax rules haven't kept posal "will have a dispro-
growth. up with the emergence of portionate impact on Euro-
In a letter to finance minis- the borderless digital mar- pean companies, resulting
ters of the 28-nation Euro- ketplace that allows some in unfair treatment."
pean Union, leaders of 16 companies to make huge They also said the tax will
tech companies including profits in Europe yet pay be difficult to implement,
Spotify, Booking.com and Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond poses very little tax. could result in double taxa-
for the media as he holds up the traditional red dispatch box,
Zalando say the proposed outside his official residence 11 Downing Street before deliver- In the EU, foreign compa- tion for some businesses
tax would undermine the ing his annual budget speech to Parliament in London, Monday, nies like Amazon, Google and might trigger retalia-
EU's goal of a digital single Oct. 29, 2018. and Facebook pay what tory measures from other
market and "harm the very tax they owe in the country countries.
businesses that are the cat- ing field" for companies However, Bahrke added where they have their re- Addressing EU finance min-
alysts for economic growth whether they are based in that the commission would gional base — usually a low isters ahead of a Nov. 6
and employment in the Eu- or outside the EU. prefer an international tax haven like Ireland. meeting, the letter urged
ropean economy." "Our proposal remains fully agreement to a new EU Britain, which is scheduled them "not to adopt a mea-
Johannes Bahrke, spokes- grounded on the most ba- law. to leave the EU on March sure which would cause
man at the EU's executive sic principle of corporate The European Commission 29, announced its own material harm to economic
Commission, defended the taxation which is that profits unveiled its plan in March, tech tax on Monday. growth and to innovation,
proposal Tuesday, saying it should be taxed where the insisting that EU member Treasury chief Philip Ham- investment and employ-
aims to create a "level play- value is created," he said. countries should be able to mond said the proposed ment across Europe."

Discovery of bones near Vatican embassy revives 1983 mystery

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The ian media immediately forensic police exhumed
Vatican said Tuesday that linked her unsolved disap- the body of a reputed
human bones were found pearance to the discovery mobster from the crypt of a
during renovation work of the bones. The Vatican Roman basilica in hopes of
near its embassy to Italy, re- said merely that the bones finding Orlandi's remains as
viving talk about one of the were found during work well. The search turned up
Holy See's most enduring near its Rome embassy no link.
mysteries — the fate of the in the upscale residential More recently, a leading
15-year-old daughter of a neighborhood of Parioli. Italian investigative jour-
Vatican employee who dis- Orlandi disappeared after nalist caused a sensation
appeared in 1983. leaving her family's Vatican when he published a five-
In the latest twist in a case City apartment to go to a page document last year
that has bedeviled investi- music lesson in Rome. Her that had been stolen from
gators for 35 years, the Vati- father was a lay employee a locked Vatican cabinet
can said Rome's chief pros- of the Holy See. that suggested the Holy
ecutor had been called in Over the years, her case See had been involved in
and forensic investigators has been linked to every- Orlandi's disappearance.
are working to determine thing from the plot to kill The Vatican immediately In this May 27, 2012, file photo, demonstrators hold pictures of
Emanuela Orlandi reading "march for truth and justice for Eman-
the age and gender of the St. John Paul II to the finan- branded the document a uela" during Pope Benedict XVI's Regina Coeli prayer in St. Pe-
bones as well as the date cial scandal of the Vatican fake, though it never ex- ter's square, at the Vatican.
of death. bank and Rome's criminal plained what it was doing Associated Press
The Vatican statement underworld. in the Vatican cabinet.
didn't mention the girl, The last major twist in the The document was pur- dinal and listed supposed landi's upkeep after she
Emanuela Orlandi, but Ital- case came in 2012, when portedly written by a car- expenses used for Or- disappeared.q