Global Minimum Corporate Tax Rate

Lord Bilimoria Excerpts

Wednesday 14th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

I can only speculate on what that might be, but the important thing is to try to get as much harmonisation on rules for large multinational companies. That is why we were always keen on pillar 1, which ensures that the profits of large digital businesses are taxed in the countries where they make their sales. It is important because, as one of the largest economies in the world, we believe that these international companies should not be able to just come here and take all the advantages of the infrastructure that British taxpayers are contributing to the creation of.

[Lord Bilimoria (CB) [V]]

My Lords, the CBI, of which I am president, welcomes the United States’ renewed commitment to engage with the OECD multilateral process, which, after a decade, has two pillars. One is a new regime for the largest companies; the other is on setting a minimum tax rate, which the US aims to see at 21%. Do the Government agree with this rate of 21%? Do they agree that we want to avoid a patchwork of unilateral action—for example, digital services taxes?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

My Lords, the Treasury is assessing the statements recently made by the US Government on that tax rate, so we are not in a position to opine on those yet. We agree on the patchwork point: we introduced the digital services tax as an interim to plug at least some of the gaps and problems that exist, but we will certainly review that if we can reach an international consensus.