Ms Cora O'Brien:

On issues relating to ability to pay, the first criterion will be which country has taxing rights. It will then be a question of whether the tax can be paid to the tax administration in that country. The question of which country has taxing rights will be determined with reference to the number of digital users in each country. There could be a number of member states claiming taxing rights over part of that 3% depending on the number of users in each one. Tax must then be applied nationally. As such, an inability to pay issue would have to be dealt with by the company. Money might be collected centrally through a one-stop-shop mechanism, but that would have to be agreed with the tax administrations to which each tranche of the tax was due.