Canada will start applying a proposed tax on the world's biggest technology companies this year, despite threats from American lawmakers to carry out trade reprisals against a levy that will primarily hit U.S. firms.

Legislation to enact the digital services tax is currently before Canada’s Parliament. Once it passes, “the tax would begin to apply for calendar year 2024, with that first year covering taxable revenues earned since Jan. 1, 2022,” the Finance Department said in budget documents published Tuesday.

The tax would be a 3% levy on the digital services revenue a company makes from Canadian users above C$20 million ($14.5 million) in a calendar year. It would apply only to companies with annual worldwide revenue of more than about C$1.1 billion. Alphabet Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc. are among those set to be impacted.

The government points out in the budget that at least seven other countries, including the UK, France, Italy and Spain, already have similar taxes in place.

Canada’s parliamentary budget officer has estimated the tax will raise about C$7.2 billion over five fiscal years.

  • setVeryLoud(true);
    3•20 days ago

    “five fiscal years” is such an odd scale to me, perhaps to inflate the number versus a single fiscal year?