Global Ban On Digital Duties Expires After Stalled Talks At WTO Meeting
- Reference: 0181193774
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/03/31/1837244/global-ban-on-digital-duties-expires-after-stalled-talks-at-wto-meeting
- Source link:
> A global ban on taxing digital streaming and downloads across national borders expired on Monday, after members of the World Trade Organization [1]concluded an annual meeting without agreeing to extend it . U.S. representatives had pushed to extend the ban, which prevents the more than 160 members of the W.T.O. from issuing duties related to e-commerce. But Brazil and Turkey blocked a motion for a longer extension.
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> U.S. representatives excoriated the outcome as further proof of the organization's irrelevance. The W.T.O. provides a forum for trade negotiations and setting rules for global trade. But U.S. officials have long criticized the group for its failure to police unfair trade practices by countries like China. Over the past year, the Trump administration has further abandoned W.T.O. by issuing its own global framework of tariffs instead. [...] Brazil had pushed for a two-year extension of the moratorium on e-commerce duties, while the United States wanted a permanent one. The countries couldn't come to a compromise, but negotiations are set to continue in Geneva this spring. W.T.O. members also failed to reach an agreement on future reforms for the organization.
Bernd Lange, the chair of the international trade committee for the European Parliament, wrote in [2]a post on X that "supporters of the multilateral trading system are waking up with a hangover."
"We knew that a breakthrough might not materialize, but that doesn't make it any less painful," he wrote, adding that "without an agreement to extend moratorium on digital tariffs, a period of great uncertainty could soon begin for businesses and consumers."
Jonathan McHale, the vice president of digital trade at the Computer & Communications Industry Association, called the outcome "deeply disappointing." He said: "For more than two decades, W.T.O. members have recognized that imposing tariffs on electronic transmissions would be counterproductive, but allowed the issue to become a negotiating football."
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/31/business/economy/digital-tax-world-trade-organization.html
[2] https://x.com/berndlange/status/2038500620131274861
Are they asking for encryption everywhere? (Score:2)
Stuff like this seems to be asking for the result is a beefing up of TOR-like networks. You can't levy tariffs on something you can't show happened, and if streaming is taxed, people will just head to the high seas, perhaps have a connection to a private channel that is brokered by a cloud service, similar to how a lot of remote access systems work. Maybe even something like TailScale, but bigger, where people can get keyed access to tagged servers, with the SDN handling encryption, even routing of packet
Seems Reasonable (Score:5, Insightful)
Why shouldn't digital goods be subject to the same taxation? If you bring blurays across borders why does that incur a tarif when a download doesn't.
Re: (Score:2)
> Why shouldn't digital goods be subject to the same taxation? If you bring blurays across borders why does that incur a tarif when a download doesn't.
Mostly infeasibility. Taxing streaming means assigning a value to the content and sending someone a bill for the taxes, or else finding a way to absorb the taxes, and in any case, are you importing when they watch it, or when Netflix (or whoever) imports it onto their servers?
Re: (Score:2)
Streaming services already increase service costs just so you can keep accessing the archive at a later date.
Now imagine the increase in your monthly streaming subscription when the various authorities start imposing MORE taxes/fees atop your service costs... for the EXACT SAME CONTENT ARCHIVE ... No matter how you slice it, every taxation authority would simply pile-on various justifications for ever-higher fees!
The taxation authorities would charge both the streamer and the subscriber because why not
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
It's a bad idea because it hinders trade. However, if only one side is profiting from the trade, the other side doesn't have much reason to support the deal.
This is probably fallout from Trump's "pleasant comments" about our allies.
Re: (Score:2)
> Why shouldn't digital goods be subject to the same taxation? If you bring blurays across borders why does that incur a tarif when a download doesn't.
Enforcement.
Who is going to pay the tax? The consumer in your country or the source in another country? How will you make (either of them) them pay it?
Physical goods can be interdicted when they cross the border and prevented from reaching the consumer until the tariff has been paid. Digital goods cannot be. You can only rely on the cooperation of those involved.
Re: (Score:2)
> Why shouldn't digital goods be subject to the same taxation? If you bring blurays across borders why does that incur a tarif when a download doesn't.
Where do you apply the tariffs?
Does every nation in the IP chain get a cut, you did use their infrastructure after all, or do you only pay at the point of consumption? What happens when it's a multi-port stream being sent in pieces from mirrors across the globe, are there different tariff rates based on the source of each specific portion of the stream or does it only count from the nation which runs the service and where you're buying from?
What happens when you're redownloading a file you already "own", d
Retaliatory tariffs? (Score:3, Insightful)
Headline to read "United States Massively Raises Tariffs, Shocked When World Refuses To Not Tax U.S. Digital Exports".
Some things are entirely predictable.
Is it time to make lemonaide? (Score:2, Interesting)
> U.S. representatives excoriated the outcome as further proof of the organization's [WTO's] irrelevance.
I hate this administration's general anti-American attitude, extreme thirst for growing national debt, and overall lawless criminality, but the above quote nevertheless excites me. I wish to subscribe to the aforementioned representatives' newsletter.
If we don't need WTO, then I bet we don't need WIPO. And if we don't need to be a signatory of the WIPO treaty anymore, then we don't need DMCA .
Hey Pedoph-- e
Soft Power, Ignorance, and Belligerence (Score:3, Insightful)
I imagine the WTO is a lousy tool for a country that can't burn bridges fast enough while demanding everyone do as they're told without reciprocity.
I think the USA is going to have to learn the hard way that the international economy has been very tilted in its direction for decades, and all the things the people in control don't understand and hate were the very things maintaining the tilt.
Once that's gone, I don't think the circumstances for restoring that tilt will exist. It's gone, and the average American is going to be poorer when the dust settles.
Re: (Score:2)
That's the whole point. Oligarchy gets richer while the rest of us beg for scraps.
Then let WTO function in the first place (Score:1)
Remember that USA paralyzed the appelate body, source of a lot of issues in global trade and unchecked tariffs today.
They should name a new representative and let the organisation handle a huge backlog of cases. Yes, even if USA is the accused, they can just keep ignoring it.
Time to invest in VPN suppliers! (Score:2)
You can tax my digital streaming when you pry it from my cold, dead encrypted data stream!