The Global Minimum Tax Shakedown

The Biden administration wants to make the world safer for tax increases. That’s the message the White House has sent by enjoining the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to agree on a new global levy.

The proposal, thus far endorsed by 137 nations, imposes a 15% global minimum tax on multinational corporations with sales of over €750 million and a profits tax levied where sales are made—not where profits are reported—on companies with over $20 billion of revenue.

It isn’t difficult to figure out who would bear the brunt of this economic burden. Neither tax is calculated to include the amortization of intellectual property, and both would primarily hit American corporations, which are bigger and more profitable and own more intellectual property than their international competitors.