House backs legislation to tax social media ads: MPs will support the Finance Ministry’s drive to collect taxes on domestic purchases of social media advertising, said House spokesperson Salah Hassaballah, according to Al Mal. The move will require some change to legislation, the story suggests, and comes after we reported in October that the finance ministry was finding it difficult to get tech giants including Facebook and Google to take action on the issue.

Background: A ministry source told Enterprise in September that the ministry was studying how to require that ad agencies and social media companies charge and remit a 14% VAT on sales of social media adverts. Taxing non-resident tech giants for their local activities is a global issue. We’re not the part of the “raise-taxes” set, but it doesn’t seem fair that global giants are exempt from charging taxes on their wares when local players don’t enjoy the same advantages. The move comes after the Finance Ministry told us last month that it was requiring e-commerce platforms including Souq, Jumia, and OLX to charge VAT on all transactions that would be subject to VAT if sold offline