Saudi Press

Saudi Arabia and the world
Wednesday, Sep 17, 2025

The G-7 Nations Agree To Make Big Tech Companies Pay Their Fair Share Of Taxes

The wealthy democracies agree to support a global minimum corporate tax rate of at least 15% to deter multinational companies from avoiding taxes by stashing profits in low-rate countries. It sounds good, but no worries. It’s not going to happen anytime soon, if at all.
The Group of Seven wealthy democracies agreed Saturday to support a global minimum corporate tax rate of at least 15% in order to deter multinational companies from avoiding taxes by stashing profits in low-rate countries.

G-7 finance ministers meeting in London also endorsed proposals to make the world's biggest companies — including U.S. based tech giants — pay tax in countries where they have lots of sales but no physical headquarters.

Britain's Treasury chief Rishi Sunak, the meeting's host, said the deal would "reform the global tax system to make it fit for the global digital age and crucially to make sure that it's fair, so that the right companies pay the right tax in the right places."

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who attended the London meetings, said the agreement "provides tremendous momentum" towards reaching a global deal that "would end the race-to-the-bottom in corporate taxation, and ensure fairness for the middle class and working people in the U.S. and around the world."

The meeting of finance ministers came ahead of an annual summit of G-7 leaders scheduled for June 11-13 in Carbis Bay, Cornwall. The U.K. is hosting both sets of meetings because it holds the group's rotating presidency.

The endorsement from the G-7 could help build momentum for a deal in wider talks among more than 140 countries being held in Paris as well as a Group of 20 finance ministers meeting in Venice in July.

The G-7 has also been facing pressure to provide vaccines for low-income countries facing new surges of COVID-19 infections and to finance projects to combat climate change. Saturday's statement said only that the members welcomed increased funding commitments by member countries and looked forward to more.

International discussions on the tax issue gained momentum after U.S. President Joe Biden backed the idea of a global minimum of at least 15% on corporate profits.

The tax proposals endorsed Saturday have two main parts. The first part lets countries tax a share of the profits earned by companies that have no physical presence but have substantial sales, for instance through selling digital advertising. The G-7 statement echoes a U.S. proposal to simply let countries tax part of the earnings of the largest and most profitable companies — digital or not — if they are doing business within their borders. The G-7 statement supported awarding countries the right to tax 20% or more of profit exceeding a 10% profit margin.

Part of the agreement is that countries such as France that have imposed digital services taxes would remove those unilateral taxes in favor of the global agreement. The U.S. considers those digital taxes to be unfair trade measures that single out the big U.S. tech companies such as Google, Amazon and Facebook.

The other main part of the proposal is for countries to tax their home companies' overseas profits at a rate of at least 15%. That would deter the practice of using accounting schemes to shift profits to a few very low-tax countries.

Nations have been grappling with the question of how to deter companies from legally avoiding paying taxes by resorting to tax havens — typically small countries that entice companies with low or zero taxes, even though the firms do little actual business there.
Newsletter

Related Articles

Saudi Press
0:00
0:00
Close
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Kuwait opens bidding for construction of three cities to ease housing crunch.
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Indian Student Engineers Propose “Project REBIRTH” to Protect Aircraft from Crashes Using AI, Airbags and Smart Materials
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
Turkish authorities seize leading broadcaster amid fraud and tax investigation
Qatari prime minister says Netanyahu ‘killed any hope’ for Israeli hostages
Apple Introduces Ultra-Thin iPhone Air, Enhanced 17 Series and New Health-Focused Wearables
Big Oil Slashes Jobs and Investments Amid Prolonged Low Crude Prices
Social Media Access Curtailed in Turkey After CHP Calls for Rallies Following Police Blockade of Istanbul Headquarters
Did the Houthis disrupt the internet in the Middle East? Submarine cables cut in the Red Sea
Gold Could Reach Nearly $5,000 if Fed Independence Is Undermined, Goldman Sachs Warns
Uruguay, Colombia and Paraguay Secure Places at 2026 World Cup
Trump Administration Advances Plans to Rebrand Pentagon as Department of War Instead of the Fake Term Department of Defense
Tether Expands into Gold Sector with Profit-Driven Diversification
Trump’s New War – and the ‘Drug Tyrant’ Fearing Invasion: ‘1,200 Missiles Aimed at Us’
At the Parade in China: Laser Weapons, 'Eagle Strike,' and a Missile Capable of 'Striking Anywhere in the World'
Information Warfare in the Age of AI: How Language Models Become Targets and Tools
Israeli Airstrike in Yemen Kills Houthi Prime Minister
After the Shock of Defeat, Iranians Yearn for Change
YouTube Altered Content by Artificial Intelligence – Without Permission
Iran Faces Escalating Water Crisis as Protests Spread
More Than Half a Million Evacuated as Typhoon Kajiki Heads for Vietnam
HSBC Switzerland Ends Relationships with Over 1,000 Clients from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Qatar, and Egypt
Sharia Law Made Legally Binding in Austria Despite Warnings Over 'Incompatible' Values
Dogfights in the Skies: Airbus on Track to Overtake Boeing and Claim Aviation Supremacy
Tim Cook Promises an AI Revolution at Apple: "One of the Most Significant Technologies of Our Generation"
Are AI Data Centres the Infrastructure of the Future or the Next Crisis?
Miles Worth Billions: How Airlines Generate Huge Profits
Zelenskyy Returns to White House Flanked by European Allies as Trump Pressures Land-Swap Deal with Putin
Beijing is moving into gold and other assets, diversifying away from the dollar
Cristiano Ronaldo Makes Surprise Stop at New Hong Kong Museum
Zelenskyy to Visit Washington after Trump–Putin Summit Yields No Agreement
High-Stakes Trump-Putin Summit on Ukraine Underway in Alaska
Iranian Protection Offers Chinese Vehicle Shipments a Cost Advantage over Japanese and Korean Makers
Saudi Arabia accelerates renewables to curb domestic oil use
Cristiano Ronaldo and Georgina Rodríguez announce engagement
Asia-Pacific dominates world’s busiest flight routes, with South Korea’s Jeju–Seoul corridor leading global rankings
Private Welsh island with 19th-century fort listed for sale at over £3 million
Sam Altman challenges Elon Musk with plans for Neuralink rival
Australia to Recognize the State of Palestine at UN Assembly
The Collapse of the Programmer Dream: AI Experts Now the Real High-Earners
Armenia and Azerbaijan to Sign US-Brokered Framework Agreement for Nakhchivan Corridor
British Labour Government Utilizes Counter-Terrorism Tools for Social Media Monitoring Against Legitimate Critics
WhatsApp Deletes 6.8 Million Scam Accounts Amid Rising Global Fraud
Nine people have been hospitalized and dozens of salmonella cases have been reported after an outbreak of infections linked to certain brands of pistachios and pistachio-containing products, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada
Texas Residents Face Water Restrictions While AI Data Centers Consume Millions of Gallons
Tariffs, AI, and the Shifting U.S. Macro Landscape: Navigating a New Economic Regime
India Rejects U.S. Tariff Threat, Defends Russian Oil Purchases
×