Tax authorities have contacted Facebook, Amazon and other firms demanding that they pay the levy—three per cent on sales of targeted online advertising, platform and marketplace services—for 2020. (Financial Times)

Talking point: The collection calls end a bilateral DST détente agreed in January, under which France put its measure on hold and the U.S. agreed to pause retaliatory tariffs, pending a deal at the OECD on multinational taxation. Those negotiations won’t conclude this year, as hoped. Washington, which claims the tax unfairly targets U.S. firms, is now likely to impose a 25 per cent levy on US$1.3 billion of French handbags, makeup and other imports. The U.S. Trade Representative has pushed back strongly on other countries’ DST plans under the Trump administration, and that’s unlikely to change under Joe Biden’s presidency. DSTs are “one of the only areas of tax policy in the United States where there’s been a lot of bipartisan agreement recently,” Brian Jenn, who previously represented the U.S. in the OECD negotiations, told The Logic earlier this month.