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Digital trade

Section 301 Investigations: Foreign Digital Services Taxes (DSTs)


Published 27 April 2021

This paper from the Congressional Research Service outlines the issues related to digital taxation at stake, the countries that have adopted or are considering taxation rules aimed at digital service providers, and the status of US responses to these rules.

Economies are confronting the question of how to tax cross-border digital services providers, including large US-based companies such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook. Most of the world’s economies are collaborating through the OECD to agree on common taxation rules. However, a number of countries – among them France, the United Kingdom, and India – have already adopted their own rules. In response to concerns that these taxation practices unfairly target US companies, the United States initiated Section 301 investigations. In an article for the Congressional Research Service, Andres B. Schwarzenberg outlines the issues at stake, the countries that have adopted or are considering taxation rules aimed at digital service providers, and the status of US responses to these rules.

Download Section 301 Investigations: Foreign Digital Services Taxes (DSTs) by the Congressional Research Service.

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