Q Why is it in News ?
A A global deal to ensure big companies pay a minimum tax rate of 15% and make it harder for them to avoid taxation has been agreed by 136 countries.
- The OECD said four countries Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan and Sri Lanka had not yet joined the agreement.
- However, the countries behind the accord together accounted for over 90% of the global economy.
Q Why a global minimum tax?
A
- With budgets strained after the COVID-19 crisis, many governments want more than ever to discourage multinationals from shifting profits – and tax revenues – to low-tax countries.
- Increasingly, income from intangible sources such as drug patents, software and royalties on intellectual property has migrated to these jurisdictions.
- This has allowed companies to avoid paying higher taxes in their traditional home countries.
- The minimum tax and other provisions aim to put an end to decades of tax competition between governments to attract foreign investment.
Q How would a deal work?
A
- The global minimum tax rate would apply to overseas profits of multinational firms with 750 million euros ($868 million) in sales globally.
- Govts could still set whatever local corporate tax rate they want.
- However, buif companies pay lower rates in a particular country, their home governments could “top up” their taxes to the 15% minimum, eliminating the advantage of shifting profits.
- A second track of the overhaul would allow countries where revenues are earned to tax 25% of the largest multinationals’ so-called excess profit defined as profit in excess of 10% of revenue.
Q What happens next?
A
- The next step is for finance ministers from the Group of 20 economic powers to formally endorse the deal, paving the way for adoption by G20 leaders at an end October summit.
- Nonetheless, questions remain about the US position which hangs in part on a domestic tax reform the Biden administration wants to push through the US Congress.
- The agreement calls for countries to bring it into law in 2022 so that it can take effect by 2023, an extremely tight timeframe given that previous international tax deals took years to implement.
- Countries that have in recent years created national digital services taxes will have to repeal them.
Q What will be the economic impact?
A
- The OECD, which has steered the negotiations, estimates the minimum tax will generate $150 billion in additional global tax revenues annually.
- Taxing rights on more than $125 billion of profit will be additionally shifted to the countries were they are earned from the low tax countries where they are currently booked.
- Economists expect that the deal will encourage multinationals to repatriate capital to their country of headquarters, giving a boost to those economies.
- However, various deductions and exceptions baked into the deal are at the same time designed to limit the impact on low tax countries like Ireland, where many US groups base their European operations.
Q What is Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) ?
A
- BEPS refers to corporate tax planning strategies used by multinationals to “shift” profits from higher-tax jurisdictions to lower-tax jurisdictions.
- It thus “erodes” the “tax base” of the higher-tax jurisdictions.
- Corporate tax havens offer BEPS tools to “shift” profits to the haven, and additional BEPS tools to avoid paying taxes within the haven.
- It is alleged that BEPS is associated mostly with American technology and life science multinationals.
