The other day I read a news headline that made me laugh, or as texto jargon would, LOL! The article, published in a very reputable and seemingly left-oriented daily, is titled: A historic step: G20 discusses plans for global minimum tax on billionaires*
The article goes into the details of the meeting of the leaders of the top 20 countries in Brazil, in which finance ministers and central bank governors are, as the article says, “preparing to discuss an internationally agreed backstop on the taxation of hyper-mobile wealthy individuals, amid increasing global cooperation to tackle tax avoidance.”
The article goes further and explains how a well-known economist has been one of the engines of this movement, and the think tank led by him has come up with proposals. The article also mentions how it is strongly backed by France, and that it is aiming to build on the cooperation resulting in the 15% global minimum corporate tax that was ‘signed’ a few years ago with great fanfare. And that is what made me LOL when I read the article title.
You see this supposedly ‘model’ agreement signed between 136 countries in 2021 was/is expected to make big corporations pay a minimum of 15% global income tax, instead of them optimizing to pay in single digit percentages. But this agreement was signed in 2021 after over 10 years of work, its implementation has been delayed, a big banker declared some time ago that he does not think it will ever come into effect due to opposition from many leaders and organizations in the west, especially the US.
And guess what? A few countries, including the US, have not signed the treaty; there is a US election this year, and there are 2 potentially globe encompassing wars going on. I don’t think we will see the 15% minimum global corporate tax rate come into effect any time soon.
To be fair to the daily, they do bring up the issue I mentioned above, and I know these movements are very slow and sometimes depressing, but hey is it not dangerous to make people think that things are moving forward, and the world is being reformed in favor of the common man, whereas in reality there is doodley-doo that is being done?
Paris, May 9, 2024
Zeejay