The US decision to suspend discussions led by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on global digital taxation rules is a "provocation," French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Thursday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th June, 2020) The US decision to suspend discussions led by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on global digital taxation rules is a "provocation," French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Thursday.
Around 140 countries from the OECD area have been conducting negotiations on the rewriting of global tax rules on digital companies, especially such giants as Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, occasionally referred to as GAFA, that make a huge share of their profits in low-tax countries. The US suggested a "pause" in the talks on Wednesday, citing the governments' current focus on battling the coronavirus pandemic.
"We have received, together with my Italian, Spanish, British counterparts, a letter from the US Treasury Secretary [Steven Mnuchin] confirming that they are abandoning negotiations with the OECD [on digital tax]. This letter is a provocation," Le Maire said live on the France Inter broadcaster.
The minister added that the negotiations were "just inches away from an agreement on the digital giants," which he claimed to be the only ones "in the world" to have made "huge profits" from the COVID-19 crisis.
Le Maire denounced the United States' way of treating its allies, saying it often resorted to systematical threats to impose sanctions, referring to Washington's threats to impose tariffs on up to 100 percent of French goods in response to the potential introduction of the digital tax.
The minister also indicated that France would tax digital giants this year anyway because it is "a matter of justice."
French lawmakers initially passed a law on taxing the US heavyweights and several other companies, last July. However, in January, France decided to postpone levying the tax, so that the negotiations at the OECD would be concluded. By the end of January, 137 countries had expressed their commitment to reach an OECD-led deal on the taxation of multinational tech companies by the end of 2020.
France's tax has been a source of tensions between Paris and Washington, as the latter believes the tax unfairly targets US companies.
