Image: Leah Farrell Image: Leah Farrell LAST WEEK, FRANCE inched closer to making its digital services tax a reality when its senate passed a new levy.
The tax has been ushered in by Emmanuel Macron’s finance minister Bruno Le Maire, who was a supporter of an EU-wide digital services tax before talks paused earlier this year. The probe, known as a Section 301 investigation, is the same method used by the Trump administration to impose tariffs against China.
As the home of Google, Facebook, Apple and an assortment of others, this gallery of giants has been often championed as Ireland’s foreign direct investment successes, creating thousands of jobs.But for many years, Ireland’s low corporation tax rate of 12.5% has drawn the ire of lawmakers on the continent – not to mention the matter of Apple and the €13 billion.
It has been taken into the hands of individual member states – France’s effort is by far the most advanced. “The unilateral action by France – even if it is interim in nature – is one example of the unilateral type action the OECD are expressly working to avoid,” she said.