Attempting to fix the broken international corporate tax system is a Sisyphean task. But a new model for taxing multinationals put forward by the Biden administration could put the brakes on decades of plummeting tax rates and aggressive planning.
The US blueprint features a 21 per cent global minimum corporate tax rate and a proposal to reallocate some tax paid by the largest, most profitable companies to countries where they make their sales.
It is similar to ideas kicked around by the OECD in recent years. But the push to redistribute a slice of tax revenues would apply to a broader group of businesses. That is likely to make the policy more palatable to US lawmakers as it would no longer discriminate against US digital companies.