The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the driving force behind the reform, had already managed to get 132 out of the 139 member countries of the “Inclusive Framework” on board with the project – the working group where advanced and developing countries discuss tax matters.
This Saturday, after two days of negotiations in Venice, the finance ministers of the G20 countries – the 19 richest countries and the European Union – gave their political approval to the implementation of a global tax reform starting in 2023.
This step, even more decisive, still needs to be confirmed in October by the formal agreement of the G20 heads of state and, globally, by the rallying of a handful of countries still resistant, including, in Europe, Ireland, a notorious tax haven.
A true fiscal aggiornamento, the reform politically approved in Venice is based on two pillars: the creation of a global minimum tax of at least 15% for companies with revenues exceeding 750 million euros; and the redistribution of 20 to 30% of the “surplus” profits of the hundred largest and most profitable multinationals, to benefit the so-called “market” countries, where they do business without physical presence.
Among them, all the GAFA (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon), champions of superprofits and tax optimization. The global minimum tax alone is expected to bring in 150 billion dollars a year to the states’ coffers.
“This is a major political achievement,” declares Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire to Le Monde. “It marks the end of thirty years of tax dumping, and it is the first time that the G20 has reached such a concrete agreement in the fiscal domain, there is no going back.”
