US hits France with 25 per cent tax on goods worth $1.3 billion

Additional taxes are in response to the tax on digital services imposed by France, which mostly affects American technological giants. However, this new tax may not go into effect in a period of up to 180 days, writes “Reuters”, the Express broadcast.

The US Trade Representative's office said the extension of the deadline for the start of tax implementation would serve to provide more time to resolve this issue, including the development of discussions in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. This decision also harmonizes with France's decision not to apply the 3 percent tax on digital services immediately.

The new move from the United States came after a research that French taxes discriminate against American technology companies, such as “Google”, “Facebook”, and “Apple Inc”.

France and some other countries view taxes for digital services as a way to increase revenues from local operations of large technological companies, which they say make a lot of the local markets, although they contribute little to the state crates.

Previous talks on finding a multilateral solution to taxes for digital services have failed. Negotiations are even more complicated after the spread of the coronary.

Last month, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin surprised European states when he suggested an interruption of talks due to lack of progress in them.