France offers to suspend digital tax in dispute with U.S.: source

[January 21, 2020]    PARIS (Reuters) - France has offered to suspend down payments on a digital services tax on big internet companies due in April as part of an effort to resolve a dispute with Washington over the levy, a French Finance Ministry source said on Tuesday.

Washington has threatened to hit some goods with tariffs over France's digital services tax, which it considers to unfairly discriminate U.S internet groups.

"What we're proposing is to give ourselves time and to show our goodwill, to postpone the remaining payments to December," the source told Reuters.

The aim is to give time for broader negotiations to take place in the mean time at the Organisation for economic Cooperation and Development to rewrite international tax rules, the source said.

(Reporting by Leigh Thomas; editing by Michel Rose)

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