G7 Global Tax Agreement

Lord Leigh of Hurley Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, I emphasise again that the G7 agreement was a really important milestone in progressing this international work on tax. It is only the first step towards that agreement, and there is much more detail to be worked on. The next step will take place at the G20 next month, when more details will be discussed with a wider range of countries.

[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)]

I will pick up on the point made by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries. While we all welcome the progress made, does my noble friend not agree that companies, such as Amazon in particular, will generate less than a 10% margin, mainly due to their monopolistic position, therefore avoiding the tax? Would it therefore not be sensible to retain the digital services tax and beef it up so that the tax cannot be passed on to suppliers, as is currently the case, and more importantly so that profits made on goods sold outside the marketplace are also fairly taxed?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, I cannot comment on individual companies. As part of the further work we are doing, we are considering how pillar 1 will apply to groups that have different activities and business lines, some of which may meet the scoping criteria and some of which may not. Pillar 1 is designed to respond to concerns around international tax rules not adequately dealing with digital businesses generating profits in countries where they do not have physical presences. Online sales businesses are not necessarily within that. We recognise the concerns about tax treatment of online retailers; that is why we are doing other work across the tax system, such as the fundamental review of business rates. In the call for evidence we asked about the scope and potential impacts of an online sales tax, for example.