France confirmed a truce over its digital tax laws with the United States at the World Economics Forum on Wednesday.
“France is ready to delay [the United States’s] payment of its down payment of its digital tax to December 2020,” said Finance Minister of France Bruno Le Maire.
European countries say that companies, like Google and Facebook, aren’t paying their fair share in taxes, as they profit online, but aren’t taxed like brick and mortar shops. As part of the truce, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin agreed to suspend retaliatory tariffs on French goods, but Le Maire said that France would not scrap the digital tax law until an international solution was reached.
The United States made it clear that it’s against the European digital tax, which it says is unfair to American businesses. Earlier Wednesday, Mnuchin said, “if people want to just arbitrarily put taxes on our digital companies, we’ll consider arbitrarily putting taxes on car companies.”
The UK, however, says its plans are good to go.
“We plan to go ahead with our digital services tax in April,” said Finance Minister of the Sajid Javid at the forum. “It is a proportionate tax and it is a tax that is deliberately designed as a temporary tax. So it will fall away once there is an international solution.”
Neither Le Maire nor Javid said what an international solution could look like, however, Le Maire will reconvene with the United States on Thursday to discuss the issue.
