Canada Obeys In Advance On Big Tech Tax

There's gold in them thar clouds, Jerry!

A new Canadian digital services tax on American tech giants expected to bring in billions in revenue was scrapped at the 11th hour after Dear Leader got wind of it and got big mad his broligarchs would have to give money to Canada instead of to him.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Prime Minister Mark Carney called her horrible boss at the last minute to say Ottawa was hitting CTRL‑ALT‑DELETE on the controversial DST — Joe Biden wasn’t a fan either — shortly after Trump called it “a direct and blatant attack” on the US and threatened to walk away from trade talks again on the day before the first payment was due. Like grownup countries do.

“It’s very simple: Prime Minister Carney and Canada caved to President Trump and the United States of America,” boasted Bullshit Barbie in the Briefing Room. “President Trump knows how to negotiate, and he knows that he is governing the best country and the best economy in this world, on this planet, and every country on the planet needs to have good trade relationships with the United States.”

The DST was set to kick in on companies that earn more than $20 million CAD in annual revenue from northerners and would’ve taken a three percent cut from ads, platform fees, and the priceless personal data harvested from places like Amazon, Google, Meta, Uber, and AirBNB. The retroactive new law was brought in last year under former Liberal PM Justin Trudeau — who is literally known for caving — with the first of the buckets of cash due last Monday.

Carney told reporters it’s now part of “broader negotiations” with the mad king and added it would’ve been pointless to hit tech bros in the wallet just to potentially have to refund money later. “It doesn’t make sense to collect tax from people and then remit them.” The former superbanker added the plan is to ideally have a new trade deal between the two former allies by July 21, an extension of the 30-day timetable announced at the G7 summit in Alberta last month before the big guy left early to go bomb Iran without cause. As if deadlines mean anything anymore or doddering Arty McDeal won’t have some new bug up his ass by then.

He Came, He Saw, He Bailed On The G7 Again

The Liberals first promised the tax before the 2019 election but put it on the backburner in part because the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) was supposed to all work together on a big beautiful taxation plan for countries where Big Tech doesn’t have much in the way of a physical presence. Canada went it alone under Trudeau after other nations ragged the puck with a new levy estimated to bring in more than $7 billion over five years, which would certainly come in handy to help meet the country’s targets for a significantly beefed-up military for some reason in the years ahead.

In the government’s words:

The DST was announced in 2020 to address the fact that many large technology companies operating in Canada may not otherwise pay tax on revenues generated from Canadians. Canada’s preference has always been a multilateral agreement related to digital services taxation. While Canada was working with international partners, including the United States, on a multilateral agreement that would replace national digital services taxes, the DST was enacted to address the aforementioned taxation gap.

But the soulless billionaires who donated to Trump and even showed their plasticized faces at inauguration 2.0 clearly said “we don't wanna to pay a stupid new tax in stupid Canada” and that’s meant to be the end of that.

Canada had hoped to join France, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom, countries that already have some form of digital taxation scheme in place, but the new DST is now DOA. This is either because Carney “caved” or a better option might be a decent Groupon deal down the road promising more stability, less arbitrage, and a hope in hell of forcing the likes of newlywed Jeff Bezos to pay their fair fucking share instead of wee Canada playing judge, jury, and executioner by itself.

But he’s taking a lot of heat at home for lowering our Elbows Up esprit de corps with the bending of the knee, and it’s a jagged pill to swallow personally after having watched Big Tech refuse to allow news stories (like this one!) shared on platforms like Facebook or Instagram in Canada out of billionaire spite for being asked to share some of the wealth, and many of the newspapers I’ve worked for during my sordid career have since folded due in no small part from seeing their ad revenue hijacked and their audiences strangled by Silicon Valley.

It would’ve gone over better if he’d gotten rid of the other DST — Daylight Saving Time — that a majority of voters really hate having to needlessly adjust their microwave clocks and circadian rhythms to twice a year. It could even be a winning idea to campaign on, eh.

[CBC / HuffPo / Narrative Research / Wonkette Bluesky Starter Pack]