Facebook has recently called out Apple’s 30 per cent app store tax for hurting small businesses.

The social media giant has recently announced its new feature supporting paid online events on the platform.

“Page owners can create an online event, set a price, promote the event, collect payment and host the event, all in one place,” Facebook announced in an official blog post.

Midway through the blog post announcing the feature, Facebook criticized Apple’s 30 per cent tax policy. Apple requires all apps to use its payments system for in-app payments while deducting 30 per cent tax from the payments made through the apps.

The feature is meant to help small businesses earn through these events from the platform. The company said that it will not collect any fees from online paid events and will absorb all costs on Android and web. However, for transactions on iOS devices, businesses will only receive 70 per cent of the revenue from their events due to Apple’s 30 per cent tax policy.

“Shifting in-person events to online is costly enough that businesses shouldn’t have to worry about fees charged by platforms,” Facebook said in its post.

“To support small businesses and creators, Facebook will not collect any fees from paid online events for at least the next year. For transactions on the web, and on Android in countries where we have rolled out Facebook Pay, small businesses will keep 100% of the revenue they generate from paid online events,” it said.

“We asked Apple to reduce its 30 per cent App Store tax or allow us to offer Facebook Pay so we could absorb all costs for businesses struggling during Covid-19. Unfortunately, they dismissed both our requests and SMBs will only be paid 70 per cent of their hard-earned revenue,” it added.

Facebook pages in over 20 countries, including, India can host paid events on the platform.

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