US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen on Monday spoke with French Minister of Finance Bruno Le Maire about the importance of working together toward a solution in the ongoing Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) discussions on international taxation, the US Department of the Treasury said in a statement.
During their conversation, Yellen emphasized US support for a strong economic recovery and explained US President Joe Biden’s administration’s broader plans to support jobs and investment in the US, the department said.
“The secretary also expressed support for measures to promote the global recovery through multilateral mechanisms and support for low-income countries,” it said.
Nearly 140 countries are racing to wrap up talks by the middle of this year to modernize outdated rules on how much governments can tax cross-border commerce and set a global minimum corporate tax rate.
The talks stalled last year following a proposal by the administration of then-US president Donald Trump to let companies out of new global tax rules, but Yellen has since dropped that demand.
Yellen had underscored her commitment to reaching a global agreement through the OECD, and would discuss the issue with her G20 counterparts when they meet virtually next week.
The US in January had already refrained from imposing threatened tariffs on US$1.3 billion in imports of French Champagne, cosmetics, handbags and other goods in retaliation for France’s digital tax, but said it could still impose them if the OECD talks did not result in a global solution.
US Trade Representative Katherine Tai (戴琪) last week said the same applied to US tariffs threatened against goods from Austria, India, Italy, Spain, Turkey and the UK in retaliation for their respective digital services taxes.
The Office of the US Trade Representative investigations into the taxes adopted by the six countries found that they discriminate against US technology companies and are inconsistent with international tax norms.
DAMAGE REPORT: Global central banks are assessing war-driven inflation risks as the law of unintended consequences careens around the world, spiking oil prices Central banks from Washington to London and from Jakarta to Taipei are about to make their first assessments of economic damage after more than two weeks of conflict between the US and Iran. Decisions this week encompassing every member of the G7 and eight of the world’s 10 most-traded currency jurisdictions are likely to confirm to investors that the specter of a new inflation shock is already worrying enough to prompt heightened caution. The US Federal Reserve is widely expected to do exactly what everyone anticipated weeks ahead of its March 17-18 policy gathering: hold rates steady. The narrative surrounding that
At a massive shipyard in North Vancouver, Canadian workers grind metal beams for a powerful new icebreaker crucial to cementing the country’s presence in the increasingly contested arctic. Icebreakers are specialized, expensive vessels able to navigate in the frozen far north. And “this is the crown jewel,” said Eddie Schehr, vice president of production at the Seaspan shipyard. For Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who heads to Norway next Friday to observe arctic defense drills involving troops from 14 NATO states, Canada’s extreme north has emerged as a strategic priority. “Canada is and forever will be an Arctic nation,” he said ahead of
Chinese entrepreneur Frank Gao used to spend long hours running his social media accounts but now outsources the chore to artificial intelligence (AI) agent tool OpenClaw, which is taking China by storm despite official warnings over cybersecurity. OpenClaw, created in November by an Austrian coder, differs from bots such as ChatGPT because it can execute real-life tasks such as sending e-mails, organizing files or even booking flight tickets. “Since January, I’ve spent hours on the lobster every day,” Gao said in an interview, referring to OpenClaw’s red crustacean mascot. “We’re family.” After downloading OpenClaw, users connect it to artificial intelligence models of their
PRICE HIKES: The war in the Middle East would not significantly disrupt supply in the short term, but semiconductor companies are facing price surges for materials Taiwan’s semiconductor companies are not facing imminent supply disruptions of essential chemicals or raw materials due to the war in the Middle East, but surges in material costs loom large, industry association SEMI Taiwan said yesterday. The association’s comments came amid growing concerns that supplies of helium and other key raw materials used in semiconductor production could become a choke point after Qatar shut down its liquefied natural gas (LNG) production and helium output earlier this month due to the conflict. Qatar is the second-largest LNG supplier in the world and accounts for about 33 percent of global helium output. Helium is
RSS