The world’s top finance officials endorse proposals for a global minimum corporate tax.
Top finance officials representing most of the world’s economy have backed a sweeping revision of international taxation that includes a 15 percent global minimum corporate levy to deter big companies from resorting to low-rate tax havens. Finance ministers from the Group of 20 countries endorsed the plan at a meeting Saturday in Venice. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the proposal would end a “self-defeating international tax competition” in which countries have for years lowered their rates to attract companies. She said that had been “a race that nobody has won. What it has done instead is to deprive us of the resources we need to invest in our people, our workforces, our infrastructure.” The next steps include more work on key details at the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and then a final decision at the Group of 20 meeting of presidents and prime ministers on Oct.30-31 in Rome. Implementation, expected as early as 2023, would depend on action at the national level. Countries would enact the minimum tax requirement into their own laws. Other parts could require a formal treaty. The draft proposal was approved July 1 in talks among more than 130 countries convened by the OECD. Italy hosted the finance minister’s meeting in Venice because it holds the rotating chair of the G-20, which makes up more than 80 percent of the world economy. The event also attracted around 1,000 protesters under the banner “We Are The Tide,” an umbrella group of environmental and social justice activists, including opponents of large cruise ships and the hordes of tourists they bring to the lagoon city.
