SAWT BEIRUT INTERNATIONAL

| 29 March 2024, Friday |

Sunak says ‘confident’ of reaching tech tax agreement

Ahead of a meeting of world finance leaders, Chancellor Rishi Sunak says he is “confident” of reaching a global agreement on digital taxation.

Tax on big tech companies has been a source of dispute between the US and countries including the UK. The US announced sanctions on Wednesday but then suspended them to give more time for talks.

On Wednesday the US announced it would impose tariffs on about $2 billion of imports, including certain goods from the UK, in retaliation for taxes on big US tech firms.

However, it immediately suspended them to allow further talks to take place in the G20 and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Sunak is expected to push for an agreement on this and call for all global businesses to commit to climate reporting.

The 25 percent tariffs the US wants to impose would apply to $887 million of goods from the UK, as well as products from Austria, India, Italy, Spain, and Turkey.

The US has said that digital services taxes being imposed by the six countries, which tax tech firms on their revenues, rather than profits, are “unfair”.

The US tariffs have been suspended for 180 days to allow talks to take place.

    Source:
  • BBC NEWS