Washington D.C. – National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) Vice President for Global Trade and Innovation Jake Colvin today released a statement in response to the conclusion of USTR’s investigation under section 301 into france’s digital services tax:
“USTR’s Report on France’s Digital Services Tax demonstrates clearly that France’s measure was designed to discriminate against U.S. companies and avoid harm to French businesses, is unduly burdensome for American businesses, and serves as an unreasonable tax policy that is inconsistent with global norms.
“The French Government’s rush to impose this discriminatory tax undermines efforts to achieve a multilateral consensus to reform tax rules to address the digitization of the economy at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and has provoked an understandably strong response from the U.S. Government.
“NFTC urges the French Government to rescind this unilateral and discriminatory tax to prevent a completely avoidable bilateral trade conflict and to focus instead on achieving multilateral consensus at the OECD.
“Other governments who are contemplating similar discriminatory measures should take note of this investigation and reverse course. Moving ahead with unilateral and discriminatory taxes threatens to further escalate trade tensions unnecessarily.
“Countries should focus instead on reaching consensus through a multilateral approach to the tax challenges from the digitization of the economy at the OECD.”
