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Nearly 140 countries are racing to wrap up talks by the middle of this year to modernize outdated rules on how much governments can tax cross-border commerce and set a global minimum corporate tax rate.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.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last