Australia hikes levy for tech giants that fail to strike local news deals

SYDNEY, Aug. 3 (Reuters) - The Australian government has hiked a planned levy that will force tech giants to pay multimillion-dollar charges if they fail to strike commercial deals with local media outlets for news on their platforms.

• The government said on Monday it increased the levy for its planned News Bargaining Incentive to 2.5% from 2.25%.
• In a change from an earlier proposal, the tax would only be calculated from a tech company's advertising revenue, rather than its entire business revenue, the government said.
• The levy applies to companies with a "significant" social media or search service in Australia, and local revenue exceeding A$250 million ($175.7 million), capturing Meta META.O, Google GOOGL.O and TikTok.
• An exclusion for professional networking sites has also been removed, bringing LinkedIn within its scope.
• All of the money raised would be directed to the news media sector to support local journalism, the government said.
• "The charge-base for the News Bargaining Incentive will be advertising revenue," Assistant Treasurer Daniel Mulino told ABC Radio National.
• "We've upped the charge rate from 2.25 to 2.5% to make sure that the overall amount of money raised by the deals entered into by these platforms with the media is about the same, and that it will, going forward, increase as the amount of revenue from advertising increases for the platforms, but that this will be more connected with that part of their business."
• The new laws are expected to be introduced when parliament resumes sitting later this month.