America is the big winner of global tax reform, Ireland and Switzerland are among the losers.

At the weekend, the finance ministers from the group of seven large industrialized countries (G 7) agreed on key elements of the reform.

This includes a greater participation of the market states in the profits of extremely large and particularly profitable companies - including the American digital companies Google, Facebook and Amazon, but also the French luxury company LVMH, which makes very good money with leather bags, fashion and champagne.

Manfred Schäfers

Business correspondent in Berlin.

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    Philip Plickert

    Business correspondent based in London.

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      Johannes Ritter

      Correspondent for politics and business in Switzerland.

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        In addition, the seven finance ministers agreed a minimum tax rate of at least 15 percent.

        No country will be forced to increase its tax rates in the future either.

        The goal is to be achieved indirectly.

        The financial scientist Dominika Langenmayr from the University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt explained how this works on the short message service Twitter: On the one hand, states are given the right to increase the tax burden on parent companies until the burden on subsidiaries abroad corresponds to the minimum tax rate.

        In addition, domestic companies could be taxed higher if the parent company is located in a tax haven.

        The goal is: "No matter where a company is based and where it has subsidiaries, it always pays at least this minimum tax rate."

        How are profits determined?

        Langenmayr also writes: The additional tax revenue goes primarily to the country in which the parent company is based. "The digital economy (Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google ...) would therefore pay more taxes, but especially in the USA, not in Germany," emphasizes the economist. That's why the United States is a fan of the minimum tax. The situation is different with the first pillar, with which taxation rights go to market states. Europe would benefit here. Accordingly, America sees this critically. Great Britain ties the approval of the minimum tax to the pillar.

        The American Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen accordingly praised the result in London. The global minimum tax rate of at least 15 percent ends the race to the bottom in corporate taxation - to the benefit of the middle class and working people in America and the rest of the world, she said. Federal Finance Minister Olaf Scholz (SPD) called the G7 decision historical. "Corporations will no longer be able to evade their tax liability by skilfully shifting their profits to low-tax countries." At the meetings of the industrialized countries organization OECD and within the framework of the group of the twenty most important industrialized and emerging countries (G 20) to agree on this “tax revolution” in the coming weeks.

        According to the G-7 declaration, a condition for the new tax world is that countries abolish their digital taxes with which they wanted to participate in the business of Google & Co. In Europe, these include England, France, Spain and Italy. However, the negotiators still have a few problems to resolve. This includes the question of how the profits are determined - in order to be able to compare taxation in the individual countries. Earlier attempts to create a common basis for corporate income tax in the EU or even in France and Germany have failed. Therefore one has now chosen a different path. The principles of commercial law, for which there are recognized international standards, are used. Nevertheless, the profit determined in this way still has to be corrected in a few points for tax law.