Tax our tech and we’ll blacklist your bubbly
Dec 5th 2019“UNACCEPTABLE”, harrumphed France’s finance minister. Worthy of a “pugnacious” response, thundered a colleague. The object of this Gallic ire was the Trump administration’s threat this week to impose 100% tariffs on some of France’s tastiest exports, from cheese to champagne, in response to its government’s planned digital-sales tax.Corporate tax has become a major source of transatlantic tension since various European countries began to cook up levies to capture more revenue from the likes of Google and Facebook, whose effective European tax rates often look suspiciously low—sometimes a mere percent or two. France has gone furthest, with a 3% levy on sales that will be backdated to the start of 2019. Britain’s version, levying 2%, is set to kick in next April. America’s Treasury calls such taxes “discriminatory”.Choose us for news analysis that respects your time and intelligenceSubscribe to The EconomistWe filter out the noise of the daily news cycle and analyse the trends that matterWe give you rigorous, deeply researched and fact-checked journalism. That’s why Americans named us their most trusted news source in 2017Available wherever you are—in print, digital and, uniquely, in audio, fully narrated by professional broadcastersThis website adheres to all nine of NewsGuard‘s standards of credibility and transparency.ORContinue reading this articleRegister with an email address