Brussels weighs broad corporate tax to capture Big Tech revenue without singling out U.S. tech firms (FT report)
What happened
The Financial Times reported on Wednesday, October 7, 2026 that the European Commission is working on ways to capture more revenue from large U.S. tech groups — including Apple (AAPL), Meta (META) and Google (GOOGL) — through a broad levy on large corporations, in a bid to raise EU revenue while avoiding backlash from the Trump administration. Brussels is considering changes to its 'Corporate Resource for Europe' (CORE) proposal that would require all companies operating in the EU with revenue of more than €100 million ($112 million) a year to pay an annual lump-sum tax contribution, currently set at between €100,000 and €750,000 per company. The reporting cites six EU officials with knowledge of the discussions. Reuters could not immediately verify the report, and the Commission, CCIA, Apple, Google and Meta did not immediately respond to requests for comment outside regular business hours.
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Start your free 14-day trialWho’s affected
- Apple (AAPL), Meta (META), Alphabet (GOOGL) — explicitly named as the targets of the revenue-capture design
- Amazon (AMZN) and Microsoft (MSFT) also heavily exposed to any broad EU corporate levy. More broadly, the story keeps U.S.–EU trade/tariff escalation risk on the table, which touches all U.S. multinationals with large European operations.
Sources