France, which is pushing hard to overhaul international tax rules on digital companies such as Facebook, Alphabet's Google , Apple and Amazon, has said the big tech groups pay too little tax in the country where they have significant sales.

Current international tax rules legally allow companies to funnel sales generated in local markets in Europe to their regional headquarters.

Some of the tech companies, including Facebook, have European or international headquarters based in countries with comparatively low corporate tax rates, such as Ireland.

A Facebook spokesman said French tax authorities carried out an audit on the company's accounts over 2009-2018 period, which resulted in an agreement by the subsidiary.

The spokesman also said that since 2018 the company had decided to include its advertising sales in France in its annual accounts covering France.

Facebook France, which employs 208 people, refers to the French tax audit report in its 2019 annual accounts, saying it amounted to a tax adjustment of about 105 million euros ($A173 million) ($A173 million).

This includes a penalty of about 22 million, the annual accounts showed.

French magazine Capital was first to report the payment of back taxes.

Facebook's spokesman said that the company paid 8.5 million euros ($A14.0 million) of income taxes in 2019 in France, an increase of almost 50 per cent from a year earlier.

"We take our tax obligations seriously, pay the taxes we owe in all markets where we operate and work closely with tax authorities around the world to make sure we abide by all applicable tax laws and resolve any litigation," he said.

Australian Associated Press