Unratified Global Tax Treaty Would Spark Digital Tax ‘Tsunami’

Ratification of an international treaty that would reallocate taxing rights over the profits of the world’s largest companies is “not the most likely scenario” despite its possibly being ready for signing in June, a former OECD tax chief said.

Non-ratification could result in a “worst-case scenario” of a “tsunami of digital services taxes,” Pascal Saint-Amans, partner at the Brunswick Group, said in a pre-recorded interview shown at a CFE Tax Advisers Europe conference in Brussels on Thursday.

Digital services taxes are levied on digital revenue arising from activities such as online advertising sales and sales of data collected from digital ...