Daily Deduction Trump Fires New Shots In The Trade Wars
Renu Zaretsky
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USTR finds France violated trade law. Unsurprisingly, the US Trade Representative completed its initial investigation of France’s digital tax with this conclusion: The levy “discriminates against US companies, is inconsistent with prevailing principles of international tax policy, and is unusually burdensome for affected U.S. companies.” The USTR recommended retaliatory tariffs of up to 100 percent on $2.4 billion in imports from France. The findings will be open to public comment until Jan. 14. 

Trump resumes US tariffs on aluminum and steel from Brazil and Argentina. President Trump’s administration had suspended the tariffs on those countries’ products in May, 2018. But yesterday, Trump blamed the Brazil’s and Argentina’s governments for devaluing their currencies and hurting the US economy.

A big tax inconsistency for the “Silicon Six,” says Fair Tax Mark. A British organization that certifies businesses for good tax conduct reviewed the 10-K filings of Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google, and Microsoft and reports that between 2010 and 2019, the companies’ collectively reported that they had reserved $100.2 billion more for taxes than they actually paid. Fair Tax Mark researchers say the bulk of the shortfall “almost certainly arose outside the United States.” Foreign tax charges amounted to 8.4 percent of the profit made overseas during the time period.

Manufacturing continues to contract. The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) reports that US manufacturing contracted for a fourth consecutive month in November. The ISM's Production Manufacturing Index was 48.1 percent in November, down from October’s 48.3 percent. Any measure below 50 percent indicates an economic contraction. “Global trade remains the most significant cross-industry issue,” said ISM chairman Timothy Fiore.

Will taxes curb vaping? Kaiser Health News reports on the 20 states and the District of Columbia that have passed taxes on vaping products. Maybe vapers will respond by using the products less often, since it worked for cigarettes. But TPC’s Richard Auxier offers a reason for some policy patience: “There are so many parallels here, and that's why we're taxing them like cigarettes. But [vaping] is new, and we should all just take a minute to know that it all might play out a little differently."

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