The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has announced the next steps in its Section 301 investigations of digital service taxes adopted by Austria, India, Italy, Spain, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, which the U.S. contends discriminate against U.S. digital companies, are inconsistent with principles of international taxation, and burden U.S. companies. At the same time, USTR is terminating its investigations of Brazil, Czech Republic, Indonesia, and the European Union because these jurisdictions have not adopted or implemented the DSTs that had been under consideration.
USTR is proposing to impose additional tariffs of up to 25 percent on goods imports from Austria, India, Italy, Spain, Turkey, and the UK, which would yield aggregate additional duty revenue of $880 million. Duties to be collected on each of these countries would be $45 million for Austria, $55 million for India, $140 million for Italy, $155 million for Spain, $160 million for Turkey, and $325 million for the UK. Goods subject to these tariffs would be drawn from preliminary lists of products for each of the six countries.
Targeted products include, among others, leather articles, textile products, ceramic articles, stemware, glassware, glass fibers, copper alloys, printed circuit assemblies, and various instruments from Austria; seafood, rice, bamboo articles, corks, cigarette paper, wool yarn, bras, pearls, precious stones, precious metal articles, and furniture from India; seafood, perfumery, travel and leather goods, apparel, footwear, spectacle lenses, and optical elements from Italy; seafood, handbags, belts, footwear, hats, and glassware from Spain; textile floor coverings, bed linen, curtains, stone and ceramic articles, precious metal articles, and imitation jewelry from Turkey; and personal care and cosmetic products, apparel, footwear, ceramic articles, precious metal articles, imitation jewelry, refrigeration equipment, industrial robots, furniture, and games from the UK.
Next steps in these investigations are as follows:
- April 21: deadline for requests to appear at hearing along with summary of the testimony
- April 30: deadline for written comments
- May 3: multi-jurisdictional virtual hearing on proposed actions
- May 4: virtual hearing on proposed DST actions by the UK
- May 5: virtual hearing on proposed DST actions by Italy
- May 6: virtual hearing on proposed DST actions by Spain
- May 7: virtual hearing on proposed DST actions by Turkey
- May 10: virtual hearing on proposed DST actions by India; deadline for multi-jurisdictional hearing rebuttal comments
- May 11: virtual hearing on proposed DST actions by Austria; deadline for UK hearing rebuttal comments
- May 12: deadline for Italy hearing rebuttal comments
- May 13: deadline for Spain hearing rebuttal comments
- May 14: deadline for Turkey hearing rebuttal comments
- May 17: deadline for India hearing rebuttal comments
- May 18: deadline for Austria hearing rebuttal comments
For more information, please contact Nicole Bivens Collinson.
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