By: The Guardian
March 29, 2021
The Biden administration has warned it could slap 25% tariffs on British exports to the US after the UK levied a digital services tax on major technology companies.
The price of clothing and footwear, ceramics, beauty products and furniture exports to the US could rise by a quarter, according to a list published by US officials.
The duties are designed to raise $325m – equal to estimates of how much Britain can expect to raise from taxing the UK sales of Amazon, Google, Facebook, eBay and other tech companies, most of them based in the US.
The US president, Joe Biden, has reversed objections to a global tax on cross-border digital sales adopted by his predecessor, and ended a surcharge on Scotch whisky that was imposed by Donald Trump after a dispute over subsidies to the aircraft manufacturer Airbus.
But the retaliation was expected against France and Britain after they went ahead with digital services taxes before a wider agreement was in place.