UK Digital Services Tax raises £800M from global tech giants

The UK government collected just £800 million in Digital Services Tax (DST) from companies such as Amazon, Google, Meta, eBay, and TikTok in the most recent tax year.

Introduced in 2020, the tax is designed to apply to multinational enterprises with revenue derived from the provision of a social media service, a search engine, or an online marketplace to UK users.

It was created to replace previous corporate tax rules for businesses operating in the digital economy, which led to a "misalignment between the place where profits are taxed and the place where value is created."

"Many of these digital businesses derive value from their interaction and engagement with a user base," the government said at the time.

A quick sweep of UK revenue from online giants shows the scale of the challenge. Amazon, for example, generates around £29 billion (2024) in UK sales. Google's total UK revenue from ...