Political Quotes

“I want to express my strong concern about various countries and a lot of places in the world potentially implementing discriminatory tax laws. These laws that they are thinking about target U.S.-based multinational companies operating particularly in the high-tech or the digital industry. Let me be clear right from the outset. These countries--mostly in Europe--should immediately cease any unilateral actions that target U.S.-based multinationals. Instead, these countries should focus their energy and their efforts on the multilateral solutions that are being developed by the global community operating as the OECD. I will provide a bit of background for those who haven't been following this issue closely. Recently, the European Commission proposed a 3-percent digital services tax on the revenues of multinational companies that provide certain digital services to users based in Europe. The tax would not be on profits but, instead, on revenues. By its design, this proposal would specifically target U.S.-based multinational companies. Implementing such a discriminatory proposal would have required the unanimous approval of the European Union member states. Fortunately, for American companies, the European Union did not go ahead with that proposal. However, some of the European Union nations see a large pot of money that they can extract from U.S.-based multinationals.…”