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Jun 04, 2021
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Google Tax: Expect global pact soon, says Commerce secretary
A day after the US deferred its plan to slap punitive tariffs on six countries, including India, by six months for imposing a digital services tax (DST) on e-commerce companies, India’s commerce secretary Anup Wadhawan expected a global understanding on the levy soon.
Asked about the US move, Wadhawan told reporters that a global agreement on the taxation matter relating to e-commerce is important, as it “doesn’t just concern India but many others”. The OECD has already taken an initiative to hammer out an international agreement on such taxations, he added.
In a report in January, the USTR office had claimed the DST imposed by India, Italy and Turkey discriminated against American companies and were inconsistent with international tax principles. India had strongly refuted the USTR claims and asserted that its equalisation levy or the so-called ‘Google tax’ was “non-discriminatory”, had only prospective application and didn’t specifically target American companies.
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