MILAN: Group of Twenty (G20) finance ministers meeting in Venice on Friday and Saturday could rally the world's top economies behind a global plan to tax multinationals more fairly that has already been hashed out among 131 countries representing 90% of world output.
On the face of it, the G20 – the world's 19 biggest economies plus the European Union (EU) – have already backed the framework for global tax reform, agreed on July 1 among members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) alongside China and India.
But negotiations continue behind the scenes to convince low-tax EU countries such as Estonia, Hungary and Ireland, who declined to sign up to the OECD deal to tax global companies at a rate of at least 15%.
Italian Finance Minister Daniele Franco, whose country holds the G20 presidency, said he is “confident” of reaching a “political agreement” in Venice that would “radically change the current international tax architecture”.
“We will do our utmost to convince the European states to join this compromise,“ said French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire.
German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said he does not expect hurdles to moving ahead with the planned global tax reform at the G20 meeting in Venice this weekend.
“Everything will happen very quickly now,“ Scholz, who is running as Social Democrat chancellor candidate in Germany’s elections in September, told Reuters in an interview. “The goal is very ambitious: we want to have everything ready already so that it becomes international practice in 2023,“ he added.
“I am convinced that in the end we will manage to get European countries to all agree on these rules together,“ Scholz said. “From my point of view, they would apply in any case.”
He described the global minimum tax as a breakthrough and the biggest reform in decades.
The holdout European countries have relied on low tax rates to attract multinationals and build their economies.
Ireland, the EU home to tech giants Facebook, Google and Apple, has a corporate tax rate of just 12.5%, while Hungary has one of 9.0% and Estonia almost only taxes dividend payments. However, the support of these three countries is crucial for the EU, as the adoption of a minimum tax rate would require unanimous backing from member states.
The minimum rate is one of two pillars of global tax reform.
The other is less controversial – a plan to tax companies where they make their profits rather than simply where they are headquartered. It has in its sights digital giants such as Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple, which have profited enormously during the pandemic but pay tax rates that are derisory when compared to their income.
When the new tax regime is in place – the OECD is aiming for 2023 – then national digital taxes imposed by countries such as France, Italy and Spain will disappear.
However, the EU plans to announce its own digital tax later this month to help finance its €750 billion (RM3.69 trillion) post-virus recovery plan – in the face of opposition from Washington, which sees it as discriminating against US technology giants.
US officials have warned that the European proposal could “completely derail” the global tax negotiations.
Countries have for years been debating how to stop multinational companies taking advantage of different countries' systems to limit the amount of tax they pay.
Negotiations became bogged down during the US presidency of Donald Trump, but were revived with Joe Biden's arrival at the White House, and the Group of Seven richest nations made a historic commitment on the issue in London last month.
Stefano Caselli, professor of banking and finance at Milan’s Bocconi University, said the agreement reached so far is “historic” – but told AFP “it marks only the beginning of the road”.
The reforms must be implemented by parliaments in different countries – and Republicans in the US Congress, for one, are strongly opposed.
For a number of emerging economies, meanwhile, the reform does not go far enough, with Argentina pushing for a minimum corporate tax rate of 21% or even 25%.
International Monetary Fund chief Kristalina Georgieva on Wednesday hailed the the OECD deal, saying a minimum tax rate “will help ensure that highly profitable companies pay their share everywhere”.
In a blog post, she also called on the G20 to do more to help the poorest countries withstand the “devastating double-blow” of the pandemic and the resulting economic damage.
Warning of a “deepening divergence” between rich and poor, she called on the G20 to take urgent steps to keep developing nations from falling further behind in vaccine access and funding to repair their fortunes.
The G20 discussions include finance ministers and central bank chiefs, including US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, and will also focus on post-pandemic global recovery, inflationary risks, climate change and aid to poor countries.
Last week, 130 countries, representing more than 90% of global GDP, backed the biggest changes to cross-border corporate tax in more than a generation with new rules on where companies are taxed and a tax rate of at least 15%.
The minimum corporate tax does not require countries to set their rates at the agreed floor but gives other countries the right to apply a top-up levy to the minimum on companies' income coming from a country that has a lower rate.
If a German corporation abroad paid only 2% on its profits, for example, it could be challenged in the future: “Then we’ll just take the rest,“ Scholz said. – AFP, Reuters
Source: The Sun Daily
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