UK tax on US tech is a useful bargaining chip
The Digital Services Tax (DST) is a relatively easy bargaining chip to give away in a last-ditch bid to appease Donald Trump, whose final menu of tariffs on UK exports to the US is expected imminently. First tabled by Philip Hammond as chancellor in 2018 and enacted by his successor, Sajid Javid, two years later, this 2 per cent levy on tech multinationals with more than £25 million of UK digital revenues was always seen as a raid on the likes of Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google, Meta and Microsoft, though it must by now also catch Shein and other Chinese operators – and was always a provocation to the White
