WASHINGTON (Reuters)-Italy and the United States issued a joint statement against “discriminatory” taxes on digital services on Friday (18), in a possible sign that Rome is moving away from a tax that annoyed Washington.
The statement was made at the time when Italy Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni held consecutive transatlantic meetings with US President Donald Trump and his deputy Jd Vance, obtaining a warm reception from the US President who contrasted his colder treatment with other European leaders.
European taxes designed to reach the dominant giants of US technology, such as Google, Alphabet (), Facebook, Goal (), Apple () and Amazon () have been a longtime irritation factor for US governments, including Trump’s.
Italy applies a 3% rate on internet transaction revenue to digital companies with sales of at least 750 million euros (US $ 853.35 million), which represents less than 500 million euros in revenue for the Italian state each year.
“We agree that a non-discriminatory environment in terms of digital service taxation is necessary to allow investments from state-of-the-art technology companies,” Roma and Washington said after Meloni’s visit to the White House on Thursday.
The statement – which also said that Trump would make an official visit to Italy in the near future – did not clarify whether Rome had committed to eliminating the tax.
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Despite the relatively small revenue level that the measure generates in a country with total budget spending over 800 billion euros, the Italian web tax is a thorny issue for Meloni.
While she has to deal with US pressure, the parties of her governing coalition want her to increase pressure on large technology companies to ensure the necessary financing to adopt expensive measures without overloading Italy’s fragile public finances, political sources said.
Italy’s Minister of Economy, Giancarlo Giorgetti, said on Thursday that negotiations with the US on major technology companies should be conducted bilaterally, not through the EU, adding that he would meet with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent next week at a G20 meeting.
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The joint statement also greeted US investments in artificial intelligence computing and cloud services in Italy to support the country as the main regional data center for the Mediterranean and North Africa.
The Amazon Computing Unit, AWS, said last year it would invest 1.2 billion euros in Italy over five years in an additional expansion of its data center businesses in the country.
