GAFA to FAANG - Will the digital tax measures bite international norms?

I had blogged about the GAFA tax here and here. Now it has transformed itself to FAANG - F(acebook) A(pple) A(mazon) N(etflix) G(oogle).

The pressure of needing to raise resources in difficult times to meet increasing public expenditure is pitted against the charge of discriminating against particular set of companies and impacting growth of business.

South Centre has come up with a detailed report in this regard. Titled "National Measures on taxing the Digital Economy", it argues that digital tax is justified and the charge of unilateralism is unfounded. 

The paper concludes that many OECD countries are at the forefront of taking these national measures to tax digital transactions, it is within the rights of Inclusive Framework members to take such national measures and the two pronged approach (under the first pillar, solutions for determining the allocation of taxing rights ("nexus and profit allocation") and under the second pillar, the design of a system to ensure that MNEs pay a minimum level of tax on profits.) should be fair and equitable to developing countries.

What about WTO obligations? Would these measures be discriminatory "de facto" rather than "de jure"? Have developing countries undertaken such deep services sector schedule commitments under GATS? Is the threat of a WTO dispute rather tame considering that the dispute settlement process itself is under serious challenge at the WTO?

Any determination of a measure by a country to be inconsistent with its WTO obligations would require a detailed look at its commitments under the GATS. The commitments undertaken by WTO members under GATS are varied. In fact GATS reflects the flexible nature of WTO commitments as per the Members schedule of commitments. Many members may have taken limited commitments under computer services. Many of the services now taxed may have not been envisaged during the negotiation of the GATS agreement. The issue of technological neutrality would also come into play.

With the number of countries seemingly undertaking these measures, half the WTO would be involved in this dispute! Or is it just another red herring before other multilateral fora resolve the contentious issue of taxing multinational enterprises?