US threatens to double taxes on UK firms under 91-year-old rule

Well that’s it for me, fuck the US and absolutely anything I can trace back to a US company.

Anyone got a link that doesn’t require a Krypton Factor assault course to be completed before you can read the article?

Apparently trying to make American tech companies pay tax in the territory they generate profit is ‘unfair’.

*impoverishment of the UK state intensifies*

But Starmer promised that everything was cool between us and the Americans!

You’re not telling us that Trump does what he’s always done and double crossed everyone who has ever worked with him, known him, or tried to get to know him… right?

Seriously, the British Government’s actions over the past couple of months have been like watching a person who is in an abusive relationship. You keep telling them to leave the bastard, but they keep refusing and claim its a “one off”, they “didn’t mean it”, it was an “accident” or “they’re changing”.

It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.

Henry Kissinger

With this and the inability to get even a defence deal going with the EU it seems like a perfect time for r/CANZUK

While I certainly don’t celebrate this (live in the UK) but have been waiting for it. Join Europe, Canada and the many other countries actively speaking out against him and the states and not purchasing American goods or blessing them with your tourism spending!

So many people recently have been acting like this wasn’t coming and somehow being mum about him and staying out of the way we’d avoid his wrath. As a Canadian I’ve been shocked at how often I’ve heard this like Trump isn’t reliably self-centred, short sighted and unable to maintain relationships.

Support the UK! Buy local and think about where your custom and cash goes.

Someone needs to put a list together of American products that we should avoid buying.

Ps I’m too lazy, bit I did just cancel Netflix.

The White House is drawing up plans that could double the tax rate on the American arms of UK companies, in a move that experts fear could have an even greater impact than the tariffs on British goods unveiled last week.
The Trump administration is planning to invoke a 91-year-old rule that gives the president the authority to raise taxes on foreign companies if their home nation imposes levies that are deemed to unfairly target US businesses. Section 891 of the Internal Revenue Code, which gives the president this power, has never been used.
On the first day of his second term, Trump ordered his staff to investigate which countries imposed “discriminatory” taxes on US firms. The work was completed last week and senior accountants and tax consultants said that the UK, as well as most of the OECD club of developed nations, were likely to be on Trump’s list.
Trump’s tariffs have upended the global trade system and sent shockwaves across stock markets. Last week, the president imposed taxes as high as 49 per cent on trading partners, with Britain getting off comparatively lightly with 10 per cent.
However, Tim Sarson, head of tax policy for KPMG UK, said that if the Section 891 measures were enacted, they would have a greater impact than tariffs. “That’s the next battle in the [trade] war, and potentially affects the UK much more than the tariffs because we’re a services economy and this obviously affects service transactions as well.” Another US tax consultant agreed.
The Trump team believes that the UK’s Digital Services Act and its “undertaxed profits” rules both discriminate against US companies.
Since 2020, the UK has imposed a 2 per cent tax rate on tech companies that generate revenues of more than half a billion pounds on the sales they make in the UK.
The UK’s undertaxed profits rules, meanwhile, allow HMRC to level “top-up taxes” on companies that have a presence in Britain but which are based in a jurisdiction that charges less than the OECD’s global minimum of 15 per cent. The Trump team believes this is punitive for US companies.
One senior tax consultant in the US, who was close to the discussions, said that if any country was to make it on to the list, the UK would. They added that the US government was also angered by the UK’s “diverted profits rules”, the so-called Google Tax, which was introduced by George Osborne when he was Tory chancellor to clamp down on companies diverting their profits to lower-tax jurisdictions.
The Republicans are also trying to pass a measure called Section 899, which would increase tax rates by 5 per cent every year, rather than doubling the rate.
However, there is some ambiguity about whether Trump would be able to impose these rules, because the UK and the US’s trade arrangements could override Section 891 or 899.

Isn’t the US the biggest investor in the UK? And the UK the biggest investor in US? Sure though stop buying a mcdonalds every week that’ll show them (and totally not punish the British franchise owner). People need to calm down about these tarrifs when our country was one of the least hardest to be hit. If things go up in price because of it stop buying it and find an alternative? Please can people start their boycott by deleting their reddit accounts

Since when did the times become a gossip paper like heat in the 90s

Can we finally quit being walked over by America now under the pretences of this whole “special relationship”?