By James Ovie
According to Nikkei Asia, the Japanese Parliament proposed to pass new regulations in 2024 to grant the Japan Fair Trade Commission (FTC) higher authority and allow it to fine companies up to 6% of revenue from illegal activities.
If the regulation takes effect, it will force Apple and Google to provide alternative third-party app stores and impose antitrust fines related to operating system market share and priority search results.
At present, the Japanese Parliament has not disclosed the details of the new regulations.
IT House reported in November this year that since it is difficult for Japan to tax app developers, it is exploring tax reform and considering indirectly levying App taxes on tech giants such as Apple and Google that own App stores.
Consumption tax to ensure tax fairness.
Japanese media pointed out that these consumption taxes should be paid by game operators, but many foreign operators are small and do not have offices in Japan, so in many cases, the consumption taxes that need to be paid are in arrears.
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The Japanese government believes that if foreign App manufacturers have a large amount of unpaid consumption tax, it may be unfair to domestic game operators in Japan.
The purpose of this new system is for tech giants operating App stores to provide services for games whose sales exceed a certain level.
Operators pay consumption tax on their behalf, thereby ensuring tax fairness with local game operators.