Donald Trump is using trade wars and high tariffs to bully countries around the world into dropping taxes and regulation on US big tech.
From digital taxes to anti-monopoly policies, we desperately need to constrain the monopoly power of Big Tech over our economy and society.
But the UK government is going in the opposite direction - it wants a ‘technology pact’ with the United States, and officials have said that "everything is on the table" including the UK’s existing Digital Services Tax, which stands to raise more than £5 billion in public funds.
The reality is that these tech firms — the ‘robber barons’ of our age — avoid paying billions of dollars of tax, lock industries and governments into dependency on their platform services and are complicit in human rights abuses worldwide. Their power must be curtailed.
Write to the government now and tell them to stand up to the demands of US big tech, and protect our ability to properly tax them, including through a Digital Services Tax.
Photo: Number 10/Flickr