Reports emerged recently that despite work at an OECD level, France and the UK are making unilateral moves to implement tax on digital companies.

France is set to introduce its own 3 percent digital tax on large multinational technology companies and this will apply retroactively from 1 January 2019, its finance minister has announced. In a speech to the National Assembly, the French finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, said that he supported an EU-wide digital tax. However, he said that the French government intended to press ahead with its unilateral plans “no matter what” due to the lack of agreement among EU member states about how best to proceed.

The UK also vowed to press ahead with its plans for a 2 percent digital tax from April 2020 saying that its unilateral digital services tax is designed to keep the UK tax fair and competitive.