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France and the U.S.: Heading for trade war over a tech tax?

March 14, 2021 | News | No Comments

France has adopted a new tax on big internet companies like Google, Amazon and Facebook.
The move comes despite threats from the Trump administration that it would slap tariffs on France in retaliation.The roughly 3% annual levy applies to digital companies with at least 750 euros (about $845 million) in global revenue, with 25 million euros or more in France. Other countries including Australia, Austria, Italy and even the U.K. have similar proposals in the works.
France is the U.S.’s oldest ally and formal trading partner. Now it’s a pioneer in taxing the world’s biggest digital companies — most of them American.

France on Thursday adopted a tax on internet giants like Google, Amazon and Facebook despite U.S. threats to use a favorite tool of the Trump administration: tariffs. The administration says it could invoke the same 1970s-era laws it used to slap tariffs on imports from China and other trading partners, including traditional U.S. allies. France’s roughly 3% annual levy applies to digital companies with at least 750 euros (about $845 million) in global revenue with 25 million euros or more in France. It would affect about 30 companies in total.
“Between allies, we can, and we should, solve our differences without using threats,” French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said in defense of the measure just ahead of the final vote in the French Senate. “France is a sovereign country. It will make its own sovereign decisions on fiscal measures.”But such a tax may unfairly discriminate against U.S. companies, the U.S. Trade Representative argued late Wednesday as it opened its investigation under section 301 of the U.S. Trade Act, a decades-old law Mr. Trump used to impose tariffs on $250 billion of Chinese imports.Consumers could pay
If the administration decides to tax French imports using the law as a countermeasure, consumers could end up paying more, Daniel Bunn, director of global projects for the right-leaning Tax Foundation in Washington, wrote on Thursday. “U.S. tariff policy has already imposed serious costs on U.S. businesses and consumers and further tariffs would increase those costs,” Bunn wrote. That’s because U.S. companies, not countries like China, pay import tariffs, and some businesses have passed that cost onto consumers.For the U.S, though, it’s not just about France’s right to tax revenue in its own country, Gary Clyde Hufbauer of the Peterson International Institute of Economics recently wrote. Countries including Australia, Austria, Italy and even the U.K. also have similar proposals in the works.”From a U.S. perspective, the stakes are an order of magnitude larger than whatever tax France might collect,” Hufbauer wrote. “Few tax measures could be more appealing to legislators than taking a bite out of U.S. tech giants.”OECD looks for a plan
How to tax internet-based companies is under discussion at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which helps set international policy in areas like taxation. The body aims to have a plan by year-end and an international agreement in 2020. An effort by the 28-nation EU to adopt a uniform policy failed earlier this year.

The Information Technology Industry Council, which lobbies for the tech industry in Washington, said it welcomed the USTR’s investigation. But it remains against using tariffs as a negotiating tool.”We support the U.S. government’s efforts to investigate these complex trade issues but urge it to pursue the 301 investigation in a spirit of international cooperation and without using tariffs as a remedy,” ITI’s Jennifer McCloskey said in a statement. ITI urged France and other nations considering similar taxes to “recommit” to the OECD process.French officials previously said the country wants the U.S. to work with Europe through the OECD, and Le Marie repeated that France would abandon its revenue tax if an OECD agreement is reached, Bloomberg noted. An OECD solution would be “much better,” the Tax Foundation’s Bunn wrote. “Clearly protectionist”The White House’s investigation has bipartisan support from the top members of the Senate Finance Committee. “The digital services tax that France and other European countries are pursuing is clearly protectionist and unfairly targets American companies in a way that will cost U.S. jobs and harm American workers,” Republican Chuck Grassley of Iowa, committee chairman, and Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon said in a joint statement.The White House could also use opt to use part of the Internal Revenue Code called section 891 to double income tax rates on non-U.S. citizens and corporations, PIIE’s Hufbauer said.The French tax is retroactive to Jan. 1, and the first payment from affected businesses is due in October, Bunn pointed out. It expires in 2021 and is forecast to raise about about 500 million euros, or $564 million, a year for France.–The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Federal watchdog to probe Trump’s land seizures to build border wall

March 14, 2021 | News | No Comments

Washington — Responding to concerns raised by Democratic lawmakers, Congress’ independent watchdog will launch an investigation into the administration’s intensifying efforts to seize private land to build barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border and fulfill one of President Trump’s signature campaign pledges.

The Government Accountability Office notified Democratic leadership in the Senate that it will review the Trump administration’s attempts to take over private property near the southern border through eminent domain, a power the government has to expropriate land for public use as long as the landowners are compensated. Many landowners oppose these efforts and are taking the administration to court in a bid to keep their property.In its notification to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, dated September 5 and obtained by CBS News, the Government Accountability Office said the matter was within its purview to investigate. The office said it would consult with the Department Homeland Security’s inspector general to make sure it is not duplicating investigations.Democrats, who have long opposed Mr. Trump’s efforts to build a border wall, praised the move.
“Make no mistake: this administration is trying to take away Americans’ private property without an ounce of oversight and has repeatedly failed to provide basic, critical information, including how many citizens will have their land seized,” Schumer wrote in a statement Wednesday.Frustrated with the scant information from the administration on its use of eminent domain, Schumer and fellow Democratic Senators Dick Durbin, Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich had asked the Government Accountability Office last month to initiate an inquiry. They asked the office to look into the number of citizens who could potentially have their land seized, the cost the property acquisitions, the time it will take and the administration’s work to compensate landowners.Durbin applauded the investigation into what he called Mr. Trump’s “land grab,” saying in a statement that private lands along the border belong to local residents, not to the federal government. Udall, who represents the border state of New Mexico, went further, calling on the administration to stop invoking eminent domain until the Government Accountability Office concludes its probe.”Under this administration’s thoughtless and potentially lawless land grab, homes could be confiscated, farms and livelihoods ruined, neighbors cut off from one another, Tribal sovereignty upended, and endangered species and habitat lost forever,” Udall said in a statement.The federal watchdog’s decision comes as the president rushes to deliver on his vow to build a wall to deter illegal border crossings, which have dropped in recent months since a 13-year monthly high in May. Mr. Trump has often embraced eminent domain, calling it “necessary” to bolster border security.With a little over a year left until the 2020 presidential election, the president has been urging officials to ramp up efforts to build new barriers or replace dilapidated ones in both public and private lands near the southern border as quickly as possible. Along with other promises to crackdown on illegal immigration, Mr. Trump’s vow to erect a wall along the border with Mexico galvanized his supporters in 2016, and he’s hoping construction will energize his base for his reelection.After a two-month-long impasse with congressional Democrats that led to the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, Mr. Trump declared a national emergency over immigration in February and indicated he would take unilateral action to secure funding for his long-promised border wall.

The Pentagon has already signed off on two controversial multi-billion-dollar transfers of funding from different parts of its budget to be used to finance the construction of border barriers.

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