From Facebook to Google, from Apple to Amazon: Washington defends the interests of its digital champions in Italy as well. If the government and the Parliament in Rome do not reverse the Web Tax included in the fiscal decree linked to the manoeuvre, the United States will retaliate with an immediate economic retaliation. The threat, reported by the Reuters agency, comes from a Donald Trump administration official, who met the press on Tuesday 24 hours after the visit to the White House by the President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella.
Trump "believes this is unfair discrimination against US companies, since they are the main companies that would be affected by this tax – the official explained – If US companies were targeted in this way, we would have no other choice than to respond to defend US business".
The American president should talk to Mattarella about the issue today. The number one goal of the United States is to avert any international agreement on the Web Tax – especially at the OECD level, where an agreement on the subject has been sought for years now – but the fact remains that Washington is also ready to fight against the legislative initiatives of the individual countries.
The tax decree approved at dawn on Wednesday "subject to agreements" together with the maneuver and the budget planning document (already sent to Brussels) establishes a Web Tax with a 3% rate on digital companies. The estimated revenue is quite high: around 600 million euros a year.
The tax will apply from January to companies with an annual global turnover exceeding 750 million euros and at least 5,5 million in revenues in Italy from digital services. In this way, Italy puts a stop to the tax avoidance of the network giants, who exploit the flaws in the Community rules to shift profits from one country to another and pay taxes with the negligible rates of tax havens within the EU (especially Ireland, but also Holland and Luxembourg).
France preceded Italy on the road to the Web Tax, but in August it had to bow to an agreement with the USA which forced it to reimburse companies for a sum equal to the difference between the French tax and a mechanism draft at the OECD.
