France confirms ‘digital tax’ for tech giants | Technology

“Businesses subject to this tax have received a tax notice for 2020 payments,” said a ministry official, referring to taxes on internet giants: Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple.

According to the British newspaper “Financial Times”, Facebook and Amazon are among the companies that received a notification in recent days.

With this decision, France is exposed to US sanctions, in the middle of the transition between President-elect Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.

Trump had already decided to charge 25% more to French wines, in retaliation for the subsidies received by the European aircraft manufacturer Airbus.

In July 2019, the French Parliament approved a tax on 3% on the turnover of digital giants, which makes France a pioneer in taxing large digital groups.

Washington, which considers this tax to be discriminatory against US companies, has threatened France with the application of 100% customs duties on certain French products, such as cheese or beauty products.

In January this year, however, the two allies agreed to a truce to give negotiations led by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) the opportunity to create a global tax on multinationals. Paris then froze its taxes and Washington refrained from imposing sanctions.

These negotiations failed in October, canceling the truce.

“We had suspended the collection of the tax until the OECD negotiations concluded. These negotiations failed, so next December we are going to collect a tax from the digital giants,” French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire said in mid- October. .