The EU is delaying its planned digital levy to give the US more time to digest a recent global corporate tax deal.

The draft was due to be published next Wednesday, but the bloc is postponing it by at least a week, until July 20, following last week’s landmark agreement at the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

The US has made its acceptance of the OECD deal contingent on EU countries such as France and Italy phasing out their national levies on Big Tech firms. There are around 10 different national digital levies across the bloc.

The OECD agreement will be discussed by finance ministers from the world’s 20 largest nations (G20) on Friday, which the US and EU will attend.

European Commission vice-president and trade chief, Valdis Dombrovskis, said on Tuesday that the bloc is still working on a draft.

“The work within the Commission is ongoing and we are preparing a legislative process,” he said.

“Of course, what is important, that we’re also now working with our international partners to make sure that the roll-out of a digital levy does not interfere with the process in the OECD.”

The EU says its own digital tax would be charged at a very low rate but would apply to a very “broad” range of companies, and would feed back into its own budget.

The OECD levy would apply only to the top 100 or so multinationals by turnover.

“It’s worth emphasising that the nature of (the) digital levy is going to be quite different from what has been (the) previous Commission's proposal on (a) digital services tax,” Mr Dombrovskis said, referring to a long-stalled 2018 proposal.

“We see this (upcoming) proposal rather as complementary because it’s also going to cover quite broad companies’ base. But this work is ongoing and Commission will put forward a proposal in due course.”

Last week, the OECD agreed a two-pillar deal, including a new way to reallocate multinational profits by country, and a 15pc minimum tax on the global earnings of the most profitable groups.

A statement accompanying the deal, which was signed off by 130 countries – but not Ireland –- said it would “provide for appropriate coordination between the application of the new international tax rules and the removal of all Digital Service Taxes and other relevant similar measures on all companies”.

The Department of Finance said Ireland “fully” supports parts of the deal – the reallocation rules – but has a “reservation” about the 15pc rate.

Ireland’s usual EU allies on tax, including Luxembourg, Malta and The Netherlands, have all signed up to it. Only four EU countries – Ireland, Cyprus, Hungary and Estonia – did not.

The OECD will be responsible for fine-tuning the deal in time for an October G20 leaders’ summit.

The 130 countries that signed up to it say they want to implement it by 2023.

The EU has also pledged to legislate for any global deal by the same year.