Yellen urges EU to reconsider its digital tax plan

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Sunday urged the EU to reconsider its plans for a “discriminatory” digital tax, saying the new global reform deal should make it redundant.

Meeting in Venice, G20 ministers, including Yellen, on Saturday endorsed a plan agreed on by 132 countries to overhaul the way multinational companies, including US digital giants, are taxed.

“The agreement that we’ve reached in the OECD framework discussion calls on countries to agree to dismantle existing digital taxes that the US has regarded as discriminatory and to refrain from erecting similar measures in the future,” Yellen told reporters.

“So it’s really up to the European Commission and the members of the EU to decide how to proceed. But those countries have agreed to avoid putting in place in the future and to dismantle taxes that are discriminatory against US firms.”

Yellen is due in Brussels on Monday for talks with eurozone finance ministers.

Negotiations at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) secured a historic agreement on July 1 for a global minimum corporate tax rate of at least 15 percent, and to allow nations to tax a share of the profits of the world’s biggest companies regardless of where they are headquartered.

The European Commission has insisted its new levy plan, due to be unveiled later this month, would conform with whatever is agreed at the OECD and would hit thousands of companies, including European ones.