OECD

On May 31, the Secretary General of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Angel Gurría, assured that by the end of June of this year an initial agreement could be reached between the Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors of the organization on the minimum digital tax. This tax would be applied to all major technology companies on the planet, including Amazon, Facebook and Google. Gurría also assured that by October, at the next ministerial meeting of the organization, a definitive agreement could be reached.

In a press conference broadcast from Paris, headquarters of the OECD, the Secretary General explained that once the agreement has been reached, countries will have to legislate internally to adapt their regulations to international standards. The aim of the initiative is to establish a global minimum tax on multinational companies in order to discourage the risk of corporations shifting their operations from one country to another in search of greater tax advantages. The idea of the “global minimum” is to stop competition between countries to offer lower and lower taxes to large companies.

The initiative was proposed by the OECD 11 years ago, although it had not achieved consensus due to the refusal of some key players to endorse it, especially the United States. However, the negotiation was unblocked with the support of this country expressed by the Secretary of the Treasury, Janet Yellen, last April. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has also been in favor of the initiative. However, the amount of the tax, which has ranged from 15% to 21%, has not been defined yet.