The Council of the European Union (EU ) has raised questions on Washington’s demands on countries to roll back national “unilateral” tech taxes as soon as a global levy on multinational companies is agreed on.
A news report by POLITICO, an online platform, indicated that the Council’s opposition to the U.S. government’s fiscal stance was contained in form of an internal Council document that the Portuguese EU presidency has prepared for a technical meeting on Friday among tax officials.
The medium reported that the five-page document, dated May 17, expressing the EU opposition stated, inter alia: “It is important that the definition of the unilateral measures does not hinder the ability of the EU and Member States to define their tax policy and introduce such taxes.”
It would be recalled that U.S. President, Joe Biden, had suspended negotiations over a global digital tax at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in April.
His administration advocated simplifying the tax by developing a levy that would target the world’s 100 biggest multinational companies.
In support of the fiscal option, Washington said it would define what it considers “relevant unilateral actions,” or national taxes that target U.S. companies, and force countries to scrap them.
Although the OECD has embraced the U.S. pitch in principle, but European policymakers aredoubting whether the new levy would ensure that all techno giants paid their fair share in dues.
Meanwhile, the European Commission is also preparing an EU digital levy this summer to help pay back the debt it will raise for the bloc’s €750 billion recovery fund.
The document sourced on the EU Council’s opposition to the U.S. demand further stated that “the definition of a ‘unilateral measure’ agreed in the OECD … should not rule out the right for the EU to collect a ‘digital levy’”.
