US attempts to water down historic tax reforms as G20 prepares to give green light to plans for global tax rewrite

The US and some European countries are seeking to water down historic global tax reforms warned Oxfam today, ahead of a meeting of G20 Finance Ministers and central bank governments in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia this weekend. G20 Ministers are expected to give the green light to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) outline proposals for tax reform at the meeting on 22 and 23 February.

Johan Langerock, Tax Policy Advisor at Oxfam said:

“The United States, together with European countries such as Sweden, Ireland, Denmark and Belgium, are pushing hard to water-down these historic tax reforms. If these countries get their way, big corporations will continue to get away without paying their fair share of tax – and rich and poor nations alike will continue to lose out on tax revenues they desperately need.

"The OECD-led global tax rewrite is a real opportunity to crack down on corporate tax dodging and tax havens and release billions of dollars in tax revenues that are needed to ensure every child has the chance of a decent education and access to healthcare.  This long overdue shake-up of century-old corporate tax rules must ensure multinational corporations are taxed where they do their business, and set an ambitious minimum tax rate that applies to all corporations wherever they are based.”