{"id":57872,"date":"2020-01-08T13:12:59","date_gmt":"2020-01-08T05:12:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=57872"},"modified":"2020-01-08T13:13:01","modified_gmt":"2020-01-08T05:13:01","slug":"france-us-set-two-week-target-for-resolving-digital-tax-spat-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=57872","title":{"rendered":"France, US set two week target for resolving digital tax spat – minister"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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PARIS, Jan 8 (NNN-AGENCIES) — France and the United States have given themselves two weeks to try and resolve a row over a French digital tax, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I had a long talk with U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. We have decided to step up efforts to try and find a compromise, within the OECD, on digital tax”, Le Maire told reporters after a meeting in Paris with EU Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We gave each other precisely 15 days, until our next meeting, which is planned on the sidelines of Davos at the end of January,” the minister said, referring to the World Economic Forum that is held in the Swiss ski resort. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

France decided in July to apply a 3% levy on revenue from digital services earned in France by firms with revenues of more than 25 million euros in France and 750 million euros worldwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a more general issue between the United States and Europe,\u201d Le Maire said, stressing other EU nations were planning their own national digital taxes. He said any international agreement on digital taxation would immediately supersede the French tax.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDo we want a deal on the digital tax within the OECD or are we bracing ourselves for a confrontational mode which won\u2019t be a conflict between France and the United States but a trade conflict between the European Union, a lot of European states, and the United States?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Le Maire said he hoped there would be no U.S. sanctions during the two-week window convened with Mnuchin, adding that any decision by Washington to take action would in effect bring an end to the discussions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On his first official visit to Paris as new EU Trade Commissioner, Phil Hogan said the European Commission \u201cwill stand by France\u201d in its digital tax dispute with Washington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also said he had discussed trade with China and reform of the World Trade Organization (WTO) with Le Maire, and that he plans to meet his U.S. counterpart in Washington to try to find common ground on these topics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe want to see a reform of the WTO and we share the U.S. analysis on this,\u201d Hogan said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last month, Washington reaffirmed its commitment to the WTO but called for longstanding concerns with the trade body\u2019s appellate court to be addressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA WTO reform is one of France\u2019s top priorities. Because it\u2019s better to solve trade issues within a multilateral body than in a bilateral way,\u201d Le Maire said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFrance is ready to support all efforts allowing a jump-start of WTO reform negotiations and the solving of the problems affecting its dispute settlement body.\u201d — NNN-AGENCIES<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PARIS, Jan 8 (NNN-AGENCIES) — France and the United States have given themselves two weeks to try and resolve a row over a French digital tax, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said. “I had a long talk with U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. We have decided to step up efforts to try and find a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[208,209],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57872"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57872\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}