The United States and European countries have signed an agreement on digital taxation

The United States and five European countries have signed an agreement on digital taxation. The five countries, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain and Austria, will adjust their current taxes on the services of technology companies under a collective agreement. In return, the United States abolishes continuous taxes on the services of those countries.

The agreement marks the end of a protracted conflict that could undermine the international tax treaty agreed upon by 136 countries. If the agreement goes into effect over the next two years, multinational corporations will have to pay 15 percent tax in all the countries in which they operate.

Technology companies in particular have not yet done so. Many countries considered this unreasonable, so Spotify introduced their own digital line to service providers such as Apple, Netflix and Amazon. The United States saw this as an attack on its own technology sector and responded with punitive taxes on the products of countries that imposed such a tax.

Those allegations no longer exist. European countries will refund companies under the new agreements if they pay more than the tax they paid.