Earlier this summer, France briefly floated the idea of quintupling its digital services tax (DST), a tariff-like levy on services primarily provided by American tech firms. The proposal was pulled back almost immediately, but it highlighted something striking: A key piece of the international tax debate was completely absent from the Group of Seven's recent side-by-side agreement. DSTs were originally a pressure tactic.
Even floating this idea is dangerous. Every day that the government fails to rule it out, confidence erodes. Wealth is highly mobile.