The United States threatened Thursday to take trade sanctions against France to counter its Gafa tax on the digital giants, a measure that Paris would deem "incomprehensible", while "an agreement to the OECD is within reach of hand".
INQUIRY - Tax Gafa: the giants of the Web do not know how much they owe to the French tax authorities
The Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) said in a statement to be "about to complete the investigation" of the impact on US companies of the French tax and "will deliver its findings on Monday, December 2". "At the same time, the USTR will also announce any measure resulting from the investigation," the statement said.
France expects harmonization of rules at OECD level
"It would be incomprehensible to engage in a logic of sanctions and trade war while we have in our reach an excellent agreement to the OECD on the taxation of digital," responded a few minutes later the French minister of the Economy Bruno Le Mayor in a statement by telephone to AFP.
"I spoke on the phone yesterday with US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin who assured me that there was no question of sanctions in the immediate future," he said, though acknowledging that the " logic of sanctions remained possible ".
The Gafa tax (acronym for Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple) creates a taxation of large companies in the sector not on their profit, often consolidated in countries with very low taxes like Ireland, but on turnover, pending harmonization of rules at the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) level.
As part of the ongoing OECD negotiations, France supports the establishment of an overall minimum effective tax rate on profits to 12.5% that would end the French tax, said Tuesday Bruno Le Maire . "The latest proposal from the OECD is for us an excellent compromise," said Wednesday the French minister. He recalled that "several other States had also supported" at the rate of 12.5%. "It is enough for the United States to support this proposal, which has taken into account all the American observations so that the difficulty is solved and that we have a strong international solution, just taxation of digital activities," he said. French minister.