U.S. tech industry urging hard line on Canada’s online bills ahead of Biden visit – National | 24CA News
A high-tech business coalition within the United States is urging President Joe Biden to take a tough line towards Canada’s strategy to digital providers.
The group says the proposed digital providers tax unfairly targets U.S. corporations and is offside with worldwide efforts to determine a world normal.
In a letter to Biden, in addition they complain about two controversial federal payments: the Online Streaming Act, often known as Bill C-11, and the Online News Act, or Bill C-18.
They warn C-11, which is supposed to guard Canadian content material suppliers, might backfire and finally enhance prices to customers.
And they worry the Online News Act, which might compensate Canadian news organizations and broadcasters, might violate the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
Biden is assembly Prime Minister Justin Trudeau later this week as a part of his first go to to Canada since taking on the White House in 2021.
“We are concerned that Canada is pursuing a number of problematic proposals and actions that could significantly limit the ability of U.S. companies to export their goods and services and fairly compete in the Canadian market,” the letter reads.
“It is critical for the United States to hold Canada accountable to its USMCA commitments to ensure the continued success of this important agreement.”
The letter is signed by 10 completely different associations within the digital providers house, together with the Computer and Communications Industry Association, the Information Technology Industry Council and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
First and foremost of their sights is Canada’s “discriminatory and retroactive” digital providers tax, which the group estimates would gather US$4 billion over 5 years, primarily from U.S. corporations.
The tax, designed to make sure tech giants pay their justifiable share of taxes in international locations the place they earn income with no bodily presence, would solely take impact subsequent yr if a brand new multilateral tax framework doesn’t take form by then.
Canada has endorsed that so-called “inclusive framework,” established beneath the auspices of the G20 and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
“Canada’s pursuit of a DST would set a harmful precedent for other inclusive framework participants to adopt similarly targeted taxes on U.S. digital services.”
Precedent elsewhere can be a priority with the Online Streaming Act, which the associations say smacks of an effort to impose on the web a regulatory scheme designed for the “traditionally restricted world of broadcasting.”
If handed, the invoice “could have disastrous consequences for content production and distribution and could inspire other countries to implement similar content-preference schemes.”
And they are saying the Online News Act, which is already fuelling mounting tensions between the federal authorities and tech giants like Google and Meta, seems to exclude digital corporations from exterior the U.S., a violation of the phrases of North America’s trilateral commerce settlement.
“It is critical for the United States government to hold Canada to its trade commitments and to underscore the negative global precedent that would be set if Canada implements these measures in their current form.”
© 2023 The Canadian Press
