Canada still prepared to impose digital services tax - finance ministry

OTTAWA, Dec 14 (Reuters) - Canada is still prepared to impose a tax on corporations providing digital services, the finance ministry said on Tuesday in an announcement set to irritate the United States.

Canada first unveiled the proposed measure in the April budget, saying it would stay in place until major nations come up with a coordinated approach on taxing digital giants such as Alphabet Inc's Google and Facebook Inc.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has agreed a common approach to ensure such firms pay their share of taxes, but a treaty to enforce this has yet to be implemented.

In a fiscal update, the finance ministry said the new tax would be imposed as of January 1, 2024, but only if the international treaty had not come into force by that time. In that event, the tax would be payable on revenues earned as of Jan 1, 2022.

"It is the government’s sincere hope that the timely implementation of the new international system will make this unnecessary," the update said.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren, editing by Julie Gordon)