G20 to endorse OECD deal on global minimum corporate tax

BRUSSELS: The world's financial leaders will endorse on July 9-10 a deal setting a global minimum corporate tax and call for technical work to be finished so they can approve the framework for implementation in October, their draft communique showed.

"After many years of discussions and building on the progress made last year, we have achieved an historical agreement on a new, fair and stable international tax architecture," the draft said.

It made no mention of a specific rate for a global minimum corporate tax nor other key details, which remain to be agreed by nearly 140 countries known as the Inclusive Framework meeting online next week in talks hosted by the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Details agreed at that meeting will then be sent to G20 finance ministers for approval when they meet on July 9-10 in Venice.

"We endorse the core elements of the two pillars on the profit reallocation of multinational enterprises and the global minimum tax as set out in the statement released by the G20/OECD Inclusive Framework on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS)," the G20 draft said in anticipation of the talks next week.

"We call on the G20/OECD Inclusive Framework on BEPS to swiftly finalize the remaining technical work with a view to approving the framework for implementation of the two pillars by our next meeting in October," the draft, seen by Reuters, said.

G7 finance ministers agreed backed earlier this month a global minimum tax rate of at least 15% and thresholds for divvying up governments' rights to tax the profits on cross-border commerce.

Intense bilateral discussions are currently underway ahead of the OECD-hosted talks to get countries on the same page in the face of stiff resistance from low-tax countries.