US offers to introduce global minimum corporate tax

The US Treasury Department on May 20 offered to accept a global minimum corporate tax of at least 15 percent during international negotiations, a rate significantly below its proposed 21 percent minimum for US multinational firms, Report informs referring to Reuters.

The department said the proposal was made during an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) tax steering group meeting on base erosion and profit shifting. The group is aiming to reach broad agreement this summer to rework rules for taxing multinational corporations and big technology companies such as Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) and Facebook Inc (FB.O).

“Treasury proposed to the steering group that the global minimum tax rate should be at least 15%,” the department said in a statement. “Treasury underscored that 15% is a floor and that discussions should continue to be ambitious and push that rate higher.”

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen first proposed a 21 percent US corporate minimum tax in April as part of President Joe Biden’s $2.2 trillion infrastructure spending proposal, which would be financed largely by increasing the US corporate tax rate to 28 percent.