European nations are hoping that an expected thaw in their relations with the U.S., after the change of administrations, will include an agreement over taxing Big Tech.
In particular, French trade officials are set to talk next week with members of U.S. President-elect Joe Biden’s team about trade and taxes, according to Accounting Today. French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire’s goals will include ending a conflict over taxing Big Tech and getting the U.S. on board with backing a deal on taxation through an international group, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the report said.
The OECD is an international economic organization with 37 member countries.
“I really hope that this new Biden administration will mean a new start in the relationship between Europe and the U.S.,” Le Maire said at a Bloomberg EU Policy Series webinar, Accounting Today reported. “One possibility of marking this new start will be to get a consensus at the OECD level by the beginning of 2021.”
Le Maire added, “We will not spare our efforts to convince the new Biden administration to join the consensus, which is currently the case in the OECD on global digital taxation.”
The OECD plans to ultimately put its worldwide tax reform blueprint in front of the Group of 20, or G20, finance ministers. The OECD forecast that the new measures could bring in an additional $100 billion in business tax revenues each year.
The world economic group has cautioned against go-it-alone plans for tax reform. For its part, France has a digital-services tax plan that has not yet been implemented.
“The only question we have to ask is whether we can accept that the big winners of this crisis, the digital giants, should continue to be taxed less than other big companies — my answer is no, and thrice no,” Le Maire said last month.
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