The G7’s weekend agreement on a global minimum corporate tax rate of at least 15 per cent has been hailed as historic, but is still dependent on the successful outcome of wider negotiations aimed in part at bringing Big Tech to heel on paying its fair share.
The first hurdle will be winning the backing of the G20 group of nations, meeting in Venice next month. That would, in turn, influence the talks being conducted among 139 countries at the OECD in Paris.
As Chris Giles and Delphine Strauss report, the global talks must reconcile countries’ competing priorities on two elements, known as “pillars”. The first, and most important to the UK, France and Italy, seeks to ensure the world’s largest companies — especially Facebook, Google and Apple — pay more tax in their countries even if they have little physical presence there.