Japan will impose mobile game tax on technology giants such as Apple and Google

CTOnews.com, January 16, according to the Nikkei News, the Japanese government is preparing to strengthen the consumption tax on overseas mobile games.

The Japanese government reportedly plans to impose an obligation to pay excise tax on platform companies such as Apple and Google, which operate between game creators and consumers by providing content in app stores.

Japan is expected to follow the European model and design its own system to tax games from tech giants.

CTOnews.com learned that about half of the top 100 smartphone games sold in Japan in 2022 were developed by foreign companies, with the largest number coming from China, according to Sensor Tower, an American research firm. In some cases, the game creators did not pay the consumption tax they received from Japanese users to the Japanese tax authorities.

Since many foreign game companies are small and medium-sized enterprises, they do not have offices in Japan, which makes it difficult for Japanese tax authorities to levy taxes.