ECONOMY

Online media publishers express fear about planned advertising tax

Online media publishers have written to the government to ask it to abandon the idea of introducing a 20 percent tax on advertisements placed on news websites.

Plans for the new levy have yet to be submitted to Parliament but publishers say that it threatens the viability of a number of news sites and could lead to jobs being lost. They argue that companies based abroad will not have to pay the proposed levy, which is the same as the tax on TV advertising, and will have an unfair advantage.

Publishers complained that the government has not consulted with them over the tax and called for the coalition to enter discussions with them about how to regulate the industry.

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