Will the 139 countries involved succeed in finding a consensus?
After the “historic” G7 agreement on a global taxation of multinationals, negotiations continue this week at the OECD, while some remain reluctant and others fear that Amazon and other giants will escape the new rules.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), based in Paris and mandated by the G20 to set up this global minimum tax and a better distribution of tax revenues from multinationals, in particular digital, is held Wednesday and Thursday a decisive meeting to try to fix the general contours of the reform.
"A dynamic Joe Biden"
The moment of truth will be the G20 finance ministers meeting in Venice on July 9-10, which will - or not - pave the way for a final deal by the end of the year. "I believe that we have never been so close to an agreement", estimated mid-June Pascal Saint-Amans, the tax gentleman of the OECD. “There is a dynamic (Joe) Biden which is extremely strong, the Europeans want an agreement. I think everyone realizes that a deal is better than no deal. No agreement, it's Gafa taxes, unilateral taxes, American retaliatory measures ”, he confided on BFM Business.
The reform aims to put an end to tax competition at a time when States have spent massively to deal with the pandemic, when the digital giants in particular have become richer.
Under the American impetus, the G7 in London laid down the framework at the beginning of June, by committing to the objective of a world tax rate on companies of "at least 15%" and on a fair distribution of taxes. rights to tax the profits of multinationals established in many countries.
The rate in question
An agreement of the group of the seven great powers (United Kingdom, France, Italy, Canada, Japan, Germany, United States) which was described as "historic" by the Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak, who chaired the meeting . It now remains to broaden the consensus to all the countries involved in the discussions. However, the rate of 15%, proposed by the United States, is not unanimous - including in the US Congress where Republicans oppose it. Within the European Union, some who have made tax competition one of the engines of their attractiveness, such as Ireland or Hungary, have expressed their reluctance.
Poland, long refractory, last week lent its support to the project.
A "decisive" support, greeted the French Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire.
Convincing China, which also has "concerns" about the project, in the words of US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, will also be a challenge.
The Asian giant applies reduced corporate tax rates in certain innovative activities and would not want a minimum rate higher than 15%, two sources involved in the negotiations told AFP.
" Red line "
The United Kingdom would like to exempt its financial sector from pillar 1 of the reform, which changes the allocation of rights to be taxed according not only to the place of tax establishment, but to the country where the turnover is realized. Other points still need to be decided, on the basis of the future minimum tax or on the number of companies that would be affected by the new distribution of rights to be taxed. The US proposal targets the top 100 multinationals.
An insufficient number, estimated at the end of May the G24, an intergovernmental group which brings together 24 emerging countries, including Argentina, Brazil and India.
France also wants to ensure that all the digital giants will be affected by the reform.
It is "a red line" for Paris, hammered Bruno Le Maire.
Questions have arisen concerning Amazon, part of whose activities, such as distribution, are insufficiently profitable to enter the field of reform, unlike the "cloud", an activity on which the American giant makes significant profits.
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