On June 2, 2021, United States Trade Representative (USTR) Katherine Tai announced the conclusion of the Section 301 Digital Services Taxes (DSTs) investigations on Austria, India, Italy, Spain, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. The investigation determined to impose additional tariffs of 25 percent on certain products from the six countries, as noted in the Notices of Action below:
- Austria Notice of Action
- India Notice of Action
- Italy Notice of Action
- Spain Notice of Action
- Turkey Notice of Action
- United Kingdom Notice of Action
Notably, USTR also determined to suspend the application of the additional duties for up to 180 days in order to provide more time to complete ongoing multilateral negotiations pertaining to international taxation issues through the OECD and G20 processes.
This decision comes a year after USTR first initiated investigations into DSTs in the six jurisdictions as well as four others—which included Brazil, the Czech Republic, the European Union, and Indonesia. In January 2021, USTR determined that the DSTs adopted by Austria, India, Italy, Spain, Turkey, and the United Kingdom both discriminated and burdened U.S. companies and were not in line with international taxation principles. Two months later in March 2021, USTR announced proposed trade actions in the six countries as well as the termination of the remaining four investigations in Brazil, the Czech Republic, the European Union, and Indonesia, where they were found to have not implemented the DSTs under consideration.
The Press Release is available here.
For more information on Section 301 investigations, contact our team and see previous posts below.