Home Business News President Trump warns UK against tax on US tech giants

President Trump warns UK against tax on US tech giants

by Mark Fitt Political Journalist
22nd Jan 20 1:50 pm

President Donald Trump is to put pressure on Boris Johnson to drop “discriminatory” tax on tech giants such as Google, Facebook and Apple.

The UK are to implement the measure in April, Sajid Javid the UK chancellor said, the digital services tax will only be a temporary measure until an international agreement is put in place.

Javid has said a 2% tax levy will be introduced on the revenue of search engines, social media platforms that derive value from UK users.

Javid said speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, “We plan to go ahead with our digital services tax in April. It’s important as we said at the time when we first introduced it to parliament and legislated for it, it is a proportionate tax.

“It is a tax that is deliberately designed as a temporary tax, it will fall away once there is an international solution.”

US Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin was quite clear on their position and said President Trump will be speaking with the British prime minister. Munchin hinted that should the tax go ahead then tariffs could be imposed on the UK’s car industry.

Munchin was asked if a US and UK trade deal will be possible, should the tax levy be introduced. He said, “we will be having some private conversations about that.

“I’m sure this will be worked out.”

He added that the digital tax is “discriminatory in nature.”

Munchin then warned, “If people want to just arbitrarily put taxes on our digital companies, we will consider arbitrarily putting taxes on car companies.”

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