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Amid ongoing yellow vest protests and a noticeable economic dip, there's now one more reason for the French government to be unhappy with the state of the Republic. Amazon has informed third-party sellers based in France that it's increasing the Amazon Marketplace fees they have to pay by 3%. The reason? The retail giant claims that its arm has been forced by the 3% digital tax recently approved by the French Parliament, which targets any corporation that rakes in at least €750 million (about $832 million) in yearly revenues as a result of “digital activities,” including €25 million euros earned within France itself.

Small or large, no enterprise wants to face higher costs for doing business, but what's particularly significant about Amazon's response to the digital tax is that it strikes at the tax's very raison d'être. Back in March, when the French Minister of Economy and Finance, Bruno Le Maire, introduced the corresponding bill, he told Le Parisien that the globe's digital giants "pay 14 tax points less than Europe's small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The fact that such companies pay less tax in France than a large bakery or a cheese producer in Quercy creates a real problem."

However, rather than tipping the scales towards some kind of viable balance between the tech superpowers and the smaller businesses they purportedly imperil with extinction, Amazon's latest move reveals that simply legislating for additional taxes to be imposed on digital platforms isn't the panacea governments in France and elsewhere would hope it to be. While the Macron administration was undoubtedly aware that corporations like Amazon now enjoy near-monopolies in their respective sectors (this is one of the main reasons why it wanted to tax them), it apparently failed to anticipate that these monopolies would enable them to pass on costs to users and sellers without suffering significant commercial damage.

For instance, Amazon has a 49.1% share of the e-commerce market in the U.S. In the U.K., 90% of all shoppers use the online retailer regularly, while in France, Amazon is growing twice as fast as the overall online retail market and currently enjoys a 19% market share. Given that so many people now depend on Amazon for shopping, and given that so many small and medium-sized retailers sell through Amazon Marketplace, it's clear that the U.S. retailer commands enough market power to raise its third-party seller fees without undermining its growth or suffering a loss of revenue.

In the case of France, the sellers faced with a 3% rise in the fees they have to pay aren't in a position to leave Amazon and sell their goods elsewhere. If they go, they'll undoubtedly lose business. Likewise, in scenarios where they adjust to the 3% rise by passing on the cost to consumers, most consumers won't be in a position to forego Amazon, since there are few real alternatives to the vast choice and convenience offered by the online retailer.

Amazon itself also anticipates that, in many cases, the digital services tax will have the effect of raising prices for customers.

"Because we operate in the highly competitive and low-margin retail industry and invest heavily in building tools and services for Selling Partners and customers, we cannot absorb an additional consumption tax that is based on revenues instead of profits," a spokesperson for the company said. "This tax is aimed squarely at the marketplace services we provide to businesses, so we had no choice but to pass it down to Selling Partners. Unfortunately, we expect that many of these businesses may in turn be forced to pass on this tax to consumers, which will result in higher prices for their products that are sold online through our store and elsewhere."

In other words, the future doesn't look too bright for France's new digital tax, or for any digital tax the OECD might propose when it reaches the end of consultations in 2020. Ultimately, such taxes might end up being nothing more than a stealth tax on already hard-squeezed consumers. Yet if that weren't a grim enough prospect on its own, there are other storm clouds brewing over the horizon for France’s tax. Representatives from Silicon Valley's biggest corporations–including Amazon, Google and Facebook–are testifying today (August 19) in front of the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) in Washington.

They will be discussing the new digital tax, and in view of their previous statements to the effect that the tax is discriminatory, it's likely they'll provide fairly damning testimony. The outcome of this hearing obviously isn't known at this point, but it's being conducted as part of the Trump administration’s deliberations over whether to impose retaliatory tariffs on France.

And if retaliatory tariffs are eventually introduced, then once again the real victims of this ongoing tussle between the FAANGs and the French government will be smaller French businesses, and by extension French citizens. And without claiming to be able to read the mind of Bruno Le Maire and his colleagues in Paris, it's safe to say this wouldn't have been his intention when he first drafted the digital tax bill.

Update: This story was updated at 15:57 EDT on August 19 to include comment from Amazon.