Anyone else frustrated by the Digital Services Tax on Google Ads?

[BizEnergyDeals]

Every month I see the Digital Services Tax added onto the end of my Google Ads bill at 2%.

I understand it's meant to tax the crazy profitability of these US platforms, but we're the one paying the bill.

Because it's just added at the end I assume it's not factored into my bidding strategy.

Curious to hear how others feel about this. Fair enough or another unnecessary burden on small businesses?

 

[John Martin]

The whole point of this was to make the big tech giants pay more of their fair share of tax, since most of them make obscene amounts of money in the UK and then pay the tax elsewhere.

I used to be an Amazon seller and I was fuming when Amazon passed their tax on to their marketplace sellers. As if they weren't already milking us enough. Ebay chose not to pass the tax on their sellers, but Amazon had no such qualms.

For me, this is a loophole that should have been closed, but since the Amazon CEO at the time was in bed with the government at the time, it's hardly a surprise that the law was drafted so badly.

 

[AlanJ1]

The whole point of this was to make the big tech giants pay more of their fair share of tax, since most of them make obscene amounts of money in the UK and then pay the tax elsewhere.

I used to be an Amazon seller and I was fuming when Amazon passed their tax on to their marketplace sellers. As if they weren't already milking us enough. Ebay chose not to pass the tax on their sellers, but Amazon had no such qualms.

For me, this is a loophole that should have been closed, but since the Amazon CEO at the time was in bed with the government at the time, it's hardly a surprise that the law was drafted so badly.

It makes no difference though if they openly say here is a 2% tax at the end or they just increase the fees, they will make us pay it someway or another.

 

[John Martin]

It makes no difference though if they openly say here is a 2% tax at the end or they just increase the fees, they will make us pay it someway or another.

That's true, but they could equally have passed it on to buyers in higher costs.

Instead, they passed it on directly to their sellers as a tax, something which was totally against the whole reason for the legislation in the first place. It was supposed to create more of a level playing field between big business and small business, but in reality it was just window dressing to make it 'look' good to Joe public.

 

[AlanJ1]

That's true, but they could equally have passed it on to buyers in higher costs.

And why would they ever do that? Same old for sellers, suck it up and pay or someone else will. (Not saying I disagree with you, just more why would they).

 

[cockypea]

Yeah, same here – honestly gets on my nerves every time I see that little 2% tacked on at the end like an afterthought. It might look small, but over months it adds up, and when margins are tight, it’s just another slow leak. What bugs me most is that it feels completely disconnected from our current strategy. You tweak bids, optimise every click… and then boom, DST. Not exactly “transparent”.

I get the logic behind the tax in theory – big tech should contribute – but in practice it just ends up being another indirect cost for us to absorb. Wouldn’t mind it half as much if it was baked into the CPC, or at least more clearly surfaced before we hit “launch”. But like this? It’s just noise in the system we can’t really control.

Curious if anyone’s tried adjusting bids or budgets specifically to account for it? Or are we all just eating the cost?