WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram and others are in the sights of Spain. The Spanish government has just announced a tax on instant messaging applications. At the request of telecommunications operators, a bill aims to regulate the sector from next year.
As part of the Spain Digital 2020-2025 project, the Spanish government is preparing a tax on instant messaging applications, report our colleagues from Les Echos. It all started with the criticisms made by several Spanish operators. Telecoms feel aggrieved by the freedom displayed by WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram or Facebook Messenger when their activities are similar to theirs. However, operators are strictly supervised, taxed and regulated.
"I'm not asking that we regulate them, but if they are not regulated, then I too be deregulated! Because it is impossible to compete if the conditions are not the same for everyone "recently complained José María Álvarez-Pallete López, CEO of Telefonica, one of the most important operators in Spain.
Spanish bill wants to consider WhatsApp, Messenger and Telegram as operators
The bill put forward by Spain plans to set the record straight by uniformly taxing all calling and instant messaging services. From now on, courier services will be considered as operators. They will therefore have to apply the legislation introduced in 2014 and register in the Spanish register of communications operators. Ultimately, services will have to pay one euro for every thousand euros billed in Spain if this turnover exceeds one million euros. At this time, it is not clear how this bill will include WhatsApp, Messenger or Telegram, services that are not billed to users.
Roberto Sánchez, Secretary of State for Telecommunications and Digital Infrastructures, believes that services like WhatsApp, which is extremely popular in the country, have "changed the way we consume communications services." Still laconic, this bill will be considered by the Spanish Parliament in the course of the second quarter of 2021. It is not the first that a country has sought to tax courier services. In 2018, Uganda introduced a tax of € 17 for all WhatsApp, Messenger and Viber users to fight the spread of gossip.