Noting the lack of progress on the taxation of digital giants (GAFA tax for Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple), the Trump administration has decided to take a break from the discussions taking place within the framework of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the US Treasury Secretariat announced on Wednesday (June 17th). This tax had been debated for months. 

"The United States has suggested taking a break from the OECD's international tax talks as governments around the world focus on responding to the Covid-19 pandemic and safely reopening it. their savings, "said in a statement Monica Crowley, responsible for public affairs.

"We were not making any progress and the secretary of the Treasury, Steven Mnuchin, preferred to withdraw from the negotiations rather than to wait for the Europeans to do it of themselves", supported the American representative for Commerce Robert Lighthizer, during a meeting with European parliamentarians. Washington believes that Europe has not put enough will. 

Earlier, however, he had not ruled out a multilateral agreement. "I think there is clearly room for a negotiated settlement," he said. "We need an international regime that focuses not only on certain industries, but also on how we are going to tax people internationally."

The American threat to tax French products 100%

At the beginning of May, the French Minister for the Economy Bruno Le Maire had estimated that the European Union should once again seize the file of the taxation of the digital giants insofar as the work undertaken at the OECD "marked (ai ) ent le pas ".

At the end of January, 137 countries had agreed to reach by the end of 2020 an agreement on the taxation of multinationals, under the aegis of the OECD. Taxation must take into account the real activity carried out in each country, to avoid that large groups including GAFA pay their taxes where the taxation on profits is the lightest.

France has decided to impose a tax on January 1, 2019 on large digital companies up to 3% of their turnover, pending the adoption of international taxation.

The Trump administration then threatened to overtax "up to 100%" the equivalent of $ 2.4 billion in French products. 

With AFP

The France 24 week summary invites you to come back to the news that marked the week

I subscribe

Take international news everywhere with you! Download the France 24 app

google-play-badge_FR