Budget 2018-19

  Digital services taxes adopted by India, Italy and Turkey discriminate against US companies and are inconsistent with international tax principles, the US Trade Representative’s office has said WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Digital services taxes adopted by India, Italy and Turkey discriminate against U.S. companies and are inconsistent with international tax principles, the U.S. Trade Representative’s office said on Wednesday, paving the way for potential retaliatory tariffs. USTR, releasing the findings of its “Section 301” investigations into the digital taxes, said it was not taking specific actions at this time, but “will continue to evaluate all available options.” The probes are among several still open USTR Section 301 investigations that could lead to tariffs before President Donald Trump leaves office or early in the administration of President-elect Joe Biden. Among these is a more advanced probe into France’s digital services tax. USTR had set a Jan. 6 deadline for implementi...

India may be in a position where it would want to retaliate, a top Trump administration official said on Thursday, even as the US continues to be on the cusp of triggering a global trade war by unveiling high import tariffs on a number of items.The US Trade Representative (USTR), Robert Lighthizer, told lawmakers during a Congressional hearing that India's system is not open and has a lot of  "vulnerabilities". "My guess is that India may be in a position where they want to retaliate. I think there's some vulnerability there. India has a substantial trade surplus with the US and they have a system which is not particularly open," Lighthizer said. "They have a system that has a number of vulnerabilities. So to the extent, there are individuals who have this problem, all I can say is we'll try to work with them. It's a serious problem and one that we have considered," the USTR said. He was responding to a question from Sen...