British taxes on large technological companies can be changed in the context of an agreement to prevent the next price raft from US President Donald Trump, suggested Chancellor Rachel Reeves.
She said talks are “underway” on digital services tax adjustments (DST), which affects giants of global technology like Amazon and Meta.
The 2% levy introduced in 2020 increases approximately 800 million pounds sterling per year for the United Kingdom, but the BBC understands that it could be changed in exchange for the United States which does not impose more import taxes in the United Kingdom, after the Trump dam has already announced.
The potential change was criticized by the Liberal Democrats, who declared that the work “risks losing its moral compass”.
Questioned BBC One Sunday with Laura Kuensberg if the United Kingdom would modify the DST to save the United Kingdom from Trump prices, Reeves said: “We must get the right balance and these discussions at the moment are underway.
“We want to progress. We don’t want to see the British exporters subject to higher prices.”
She said it was “the right thing that companies operating in the United Kingdom pay their taxes in the United Kingdom, and that the American government and technological companies also understand, but we have discussions with the United States at the moment. I want to preserve free and open trade.”
Trump announced a multitude of prices on goods from other countries, including the United Kingdom, since the start of its presidency in January.
Prices are taxes billed on goods imported from other countries.
Societies that bring foreign goods to the country pay tax to government.
He delayed some of these prices and returned to others, but has committed to announce a group of additional prices on April 2, nicknamed the “day of the price” by some.
Trump estimates that taxes encourage American companies to buy from American suppliers and use American work, but companies maintain that it is unrealistic because they should revise their supply chains.
Reeves told the BBC that the United States is “rightly concerned about countries that important and persistent trade surpluses with the United States. The United Kingdom is not one of these countries. We have a trade in balance between our countries”.
The spokesperson for the Treasury of the Liberal Democrats, Daisy Cooper, said that she was “deeply concerned about the fact that the government could even consider reducing the digital services tax”.
“If the government is seriously speaking of setting up wild cuts that will affect disabled people while giving a task document to Elon Musk, Zuckerberg and other American technological barons, then the Labor government risks losing its moral compass,” she told the BBC.
Liberal democrats are pressure for the DST to be tripled to 6%.
