Brussels looks at a levy on every large firm, so the tax does not name US tech

The European Commission is looking at a levy on large companies of every sector, rather than a tax aimed only at American digital groups, as a way to raise money for the EU budget without a direct fight with Washington. Six officials told the Financial Times that the work is focused on firms such as Apple, Meta and Google, but that the instrument being discussed would not name them. The talks are live as member states negotiate the bloc's next shared budget and as several capitals ask Brussels for new central revenues.

The vehicle already on the table is a proposal, known in the Commission as a core corporate contribution, that would require companies operating in the EU with annual revenue above 100 million euros to pay a yearly lump sum. Officials told the FT that Brussels is considering changes to that draft so that it covers "pretty much all the big companies", in the words of one person involved. A broad base is the point. A digital-services tax aimed at a short list of US platforms has already drawn threats of retaliation from the Trump administration. A lump sum on every large firm, European and American, is harder to label as a tech penalty, and easier to defend as a budget measure.

The money is not small in Brussels terms. The core levy is one of five new "own resources" the Commission has grouped together. The five, taken as a package, are scored at about 60 billion euros a year for the common budget from 2028. That is the figure finance ministries will argue over, because an own resource is revenue that arrives in Brussels without a fresh national transfer. Capitals that want the EU to spend more on defence, borders and industrial support, and that do not want to raise their own contributions, have asked for exactly this kind of stream. Capitals that already host the headquarters of the firms most likely to pay are less keen.

The global tax talks are the background, and they are stuck. The OECD arrangement on where multinationals' profits are taxed has not produced the revenue some EU members expected. A European lump sum sidesteps that argument. It does not try to reallocate profit. It charges a fixed amount to any large firm that operates in the single market, above a revenue line. The 100 million euro threshold is low enough to catch far more than the technology majors. A mid-size industrial exporter with a European subsidiary would be in scope. That is what makes the proposal politically usable, and what will draw the heaviest lobbying against it.

Washington's objection, on the record over the past year, has been to digital levies that fall mostly on US firms. A text that also hits European manufacturers, carmakers and banks gives the Commission an answer: the charge is not a digital tax. It does not remove the commercial complaint. US technology groups would still pay, and they would pay alongside everyone else. The difference is legal and diplomatic, not financial. Officials described that difference as the reason for widening the base.

Nothing has been tabled in revised form. The FT's account is of discussions, not of a published draft. The existing proposal, the 100 million euro line, and the 60 billion euro package score are the public anchors. The new element is the intention, attributed to officials, to expand the charge so that it cannot be read as a tax on American platforms alone. Member states still have to accept any own resource. A levy that reaches their own national champions will be the clause they negotiate hardest, and the clause Brussels is counting on to keep the measure alive past Washington.