Following the raging debate around the latest updates to WhatsApp’s privacy policy, RSS ideologue K.N. Govindacharya urged the government to tax data transfers between Facebook group companies. In fact, he said that data transfers done by all tech giants should be taxed “with retrospective effect”. “This is a big opportunity to impose taxes on Facebook and other tech giants for data sharing arrangement in India for huge commercial gains,” Govindacharya wrote in a letter to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. He also said that specific provisions be added to the upcoming Finance Bill to make this taxation possible. MediaNama has seen a copy of the letter. “It is a well-known fact that the impact of digital sector has been on a wide array of services,” he said in the letter. “As the economy contracts, the Government will have to look at newer sources of taxation. It is submitted that the Digital Sector is one such goldmine, which has been enjoying a laissez faire regime”. Govindacharya also estimated WhatsApp’s value as an argument to why the company, along with other big tech firms should be taxed on data transfers: “WhatsApp, which had 46.5 crore users, was acquired by Facebook in 2014 for USD 19 Billion. In 2020, it has 200 crore users, and its value can be considered to be about USD 90 Billion. With 40 crore users in India, the value of WhatsApp may be around 18 Billion dollars, i.e. around Rs. 1,48,000 cr. (One Lakh and Forty Thousand Crore Rupees),”…
