Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he will likely meet with French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development early next year to further discuss digital service taxes.
“I don’t think I’m going to be able to get there in December, but I’m going to probably going to see Bruno Le Maire and the OECD in the beginning of January,” Mnuchin told reporters following congressional testimony on Dec. 5. “We want to work closely, but we have concerns, as you know, about DSTs.”
- The U.S. recently announced it is considering up to $2.4 billion in retaliatory tariffs on French products in response to that country’s new 3% digital services tax.
- U.S. officials believe the tax unfairly targets U.S. multinational tech firms like Facebook Inc. and Google LLC.
- Mnuchin sent a Dec. 3 letter to the OECD outlining those concerns. OECD head Angel Gurria responded a day later with an invitation for Mnuchin to meet again in France to negotiate further in December.
- The OECD is leading a multinational effort to overhaul taxation of the digital economy, which is driven by concerns that big tech companies aren’t paying enough in taxes and aren’t paying taxes in the right countries.
To contact the reporter on this story: Colin Wilhelm in Washington at cwilhelm@bloomberglaw.com
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