LONDON – Ireland has “significant reservations” about a plan by United States President Joe Biden for a global minimum corporate tax of at least 15%, Dublin’s finance minister, Paschal Donohoe, told Sky News yesterday.
“We do have really significant reservations regarding a global minimum effective tax rate status at such a level that it means only certain countries, and certain-sized economies, can benefit from that base – we have a really significant concern about that.”
According to Sky News, Donohoe said Ireland intends to hold its corporate tax rate at 12.5% for a few more years.
Talks are under way at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) for a global minimum corporate tax rate.
Washington floated the idea as part of a push to find an agreement with major economies on imposing a shared minimum corporate tax to end a race to lower taxes.
France and Germany, the European Union’s biggest economies, have backed the US proposal, and their support is key for the OECD talks.
Last week, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said Paris “can live with 15%; it can be a good compromise”.
However, “the key question is not the figure”, he said, insisting that a quick political agreement is key and needed no later than a G20 meeting in Italy in July.
German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz hailed the US proposal as a “really a big progress” that brought negotiations to a “point where we can see that we will make it”.
The OECD talks are intended to stop what Washington calls a “race to the bottom” among countries to see which can offer the lowest rate. – AFP, May 26, 2021
