France to tax Apple, Google devices to fund culture

France has long been a tax-friendly country and consumers might shortly be required to pay higher prices for smartphones and tablets like iPhones, Androids and Kindles if the government were to go by the advice in a long awaited report.

The report, prepared by the nine-member panel, headed by respected French journalist and businessman Pierre Lescure, said that revenue gained from the proposed new taxes could help fund artistic and creative ventures.

The report would be handed to French president Francois Hollande on Monday and would contain a number of proposals regarding French culture and digital policy.

Among these is a suggestion to ''call upon the makers and distributors of online devices'' to pay a new tax, to fund French ''cultural content,'' including movies, TV and music.

The report – parts of which were leaked to the French press would argue that French consumers had become accustomed to free access to their culture, according to French TV TF1.

Multinational giants like Google, Apple and Amazon, who made smartphones and tablets that increasingly transmitted videos, music, and movies needed to be called upon to play their part in financing the future of French cinema, music and TV.

Since the 1980s, film distributors and cinemas, TV channels and more recently, internet service providers, had been required in France to contribute towards the creation of French movies, music and television from their earnings.

The first quarter of this year saw France slip back into recession as the European Commission expected the economy to contract 0.1 per cent in 2013.

According to Lescure, a 4 per cent tax on the sale of smartphones and tablets, namely Apple's iPhone and iPad and Google Android products, could boost government revenues as consumers were spending more money on hardware than on content.

According to Aurelie Filipetti, the culture minister, companies that made these tablets must, in a minor way, be made to contribute part of the revenue from their sales to help creators.

The move would see Apple and Google join TV and radio broadcasters and internet service providers, who contributed part of their earnings to fund the arts in France.

However, the move which would closely follow Hollande's moves raising taxes on the rich and forcing cuts in bankers' bonuses, the proposed tax has already triggered controversy.

According to DigitalEurope, which lobbied in Brussels for smartphone makers, the tax was ''a move in the wrong direction''.