Australia hikes levy for tech giants

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 levy applies to companies with a "significant" social media or search service in Australia, and local revenue exceeding $175.7 million, capturing Meta , Google 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..