Technology giants like Apple, Google and Amazon should start paying the digital services tax on Monday.
48 hours from the entry into force of this tax, President Donald Trump decided to end the negotiations on customs prices with Canada.
Digital services tax should cost billions of dollars to the most American giant technology in the years to come.
What is digital services tax?
Canada’s digital service tax (TSN) affects web giants that offer digital services, such as advertising or online shopping, and more than $ 20 million in Canadian market income.
Giants like Amazon, Apple, Airbnb, Google, Meta and Uber will be taxed at 3 % on the income they generate with Canadian users and customers.
The tax has been in force since last year, but the first payments are due from Monday.
The tax, which is retroactive at 2022, is expected to rise to 2 billion US dollars by the end of July.
Why does Canada create this tax?
The parliamentary budget office estimated last year that the tax would earn more than $ 7 billion over five years.
The Liberals had promised this tax for the first time in the 2019 federal elections, but it was delayed for years because a number of other countries wanted to find a global digital taxation that could be applied in several countries.
Due to the delay in the decision -making of other countries, Canada has implemented its own tax plan.
American hostility
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney saluting US President Donald Trump, who features a pin combining the flags in the United States and Canada at the G7 summit on June 16, 2025.
Photo : Getty Images / Chip Somodevilla
The United States has been hostile to this tax from the start, as it mainly affects American companies.
According to officials, this tax is discriminatory towards American companies. Even Congress has united against this tax.
The Association of the IT and communications industry estimated that US companies could pay up to $ 1 billion per year in taxes if the measure was in force.
A certain number of experts in the sector have already warned that this tax would test the relations between Canada and the United States.
Ottawa maintains the course
In recent weeks, Canadian and American business groups, organizations representing American technological giants and American elected officials have signed letters requiring the repeal or suspension of the tax. But the Minister of Finance, François-Philippe Champagne, replied that the law had been adopted by the Parliament and that Canada was not going to retreat.
Canada is not the only country to have adopted this specific tax for web giants, France, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom have set up a similar tax.
With information from Rhianna Schmunk from CBC
