Tensions and blockages, then concessions and advances. And suddenly, after two days of electricity negotiations on Wednesday June 30 and Thursday 1er July, a global agreement with 130 countries was obtained on a reform of global taxation to tax more and better the hundred largest and more profitable multinationals, including the famous GAFA (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon).
Meeting in Paris to prepare the final version of the project which will be submitted to the finance ministers of the G20 (the 19 richest countries and the European Union) on July 9 and 10, in Venice, the working group known as the “Inclusive framework Attached to the OECD, which brings together rich and emerging countries, has achieved its objective: to reach a compromise on the fine tuning of the future reform.
The text that must implement this reform, described as historic is ready, on its two pillars: the global minimum tax of at least 15% which will de facto neutralize tax havens at zero rate (Cayman Islands, Virgin Islands British, Jersey, etc.); and the redistribution of a share of the surplus profits of multinationals to the states in which they do business without having a presence there, including many developing countries.
A political green light expected
Thus, all that is now missing is a political green light, expected in Venice, to put the reform on track by 2022 and make this fiscal big bang a reality. If this is the case, it will be the first time that tax rules adapted to the globalization of the economy and the rise of digital technology will be deployed on a global scale. At the beginning of June, the member countries of the G7, led by the new Biden administration, had given the political impetus that was lacking in the project, by bringing their “Strong support” to the work of the OECD.
With 130 countries out of the 139 in the Inclusive Framework group, the agreement is unquestionably global. The heavyweights of the G20 have all signed, India and China included, as also most of the developing countries. Argentina was tempted for a time to secede, spurred on by the arguments of the Independent Commission for the Reform of the Taxation of Multinationals (ICRICT) in favor of a more radical and more generous agreement, notably based on a minimum tax at 21% – the rate initially proposed by the new American president, Joe Biden, to launch the debates – and a greater distribution of taxes in favor of emerging countries.
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