A global pattern of pressure, and resistance<\/p>\n
The UK isn\u2019t alone in trying to take on multinational corporations ripping off the public.\u00a0But when Poland announced plans for a 3% DST, their government was met with similar\u00a0hectoring from the U.S. ambassador<\/a>, using language that wouldn\u2019t be out of place in an episode of The Sopranos; \u201cPresident Trump will reciprocate as well he should. Rescind the tax to avoid the consequences!\u201d But as reported this week,\u00a0Poland\u2019s Digitalisation Minister has stood firm.<\/a>\u00a0They will join the UK and around 25 other countries across Europe already using a DST.<\/p>\n DST laws at national level are helping to stop mega-corporations getting away with not paying their fair share.\u00a0But as national laws, each is slightly different in terms of design and implementation, and the rates range from 1.5% Poland to 7.5% in Hungary.<\/a><\/p>\n The landmark 2021 OECD global tax agreement was meant to mark the beginning of a much more seismic and long-lasting fix.\u00a0The crux of this agreement, to which the UK is also committed, is that multinationals will be forced to register profits where their sales are made, regardless of the physical presence. This is \u201cPillar 1\u201d of the new agreement, and would mean\u00a0no more could companies like Amazon gerrymander their business structures to register mega-profits in 10-person offices in Switzerland and Ireland, whilst somehow running practically non-profit \u00a3multi-billion-turnover organisations in the UK or France.<\/p>\n The DST was meant to be a temporary tax that will no longer be needed once this new international tax regime is finalised. But last November, those historic plans were dealt a serious blow when\u00a0the UK signed up to\u00a0a U.S. exemption<\/a>\u00a0from another crucial element of the OECD agreement; the Global Minimum Tax\u00a0(a.k.a pillar 2)\u2014 a move that\u00a0Tax Watch estimates will hand $40.5 billion in annual tax cuts to U.S. multinationals<\/a>, including $6 billion to just six tech giants.<\/p>\n We don\u2019t know how much this will cost the UK \u2014 because the government won\u2019t release the impact assessments. They admit the documents exist, but won\u2019t say whether they were written before or after signing the deal (we\u2019re not sure which is worse), or how much we\u2019re forecasted to give away.\u00a0With the U.S. president and his Billionaire buddies looking to water down, carve out and blow up this deal, it is more important than ever that the UK holds the line on our DST.<\/p>\n How can we win a fairer future?<\/p>\n Unfortunately this is what happens when global tax policy is shaped in secretive OECD backrooms dominated by a handful of rich countries and corporate lobbyists. It\u2019s why we\u2019re campaigning\u00a0for a UN tax convention<\/a>: a more democratic, transparent way of setting global rules. It\u2019s why we\u2019re\u00a0campaigning to kick big cash donations out of our politics<\/a>: to guarantee our politicians are working for the majority and not the mega-rich minority. And why we\u2019re campaigning\u00a0to end UK tax havens that are central to facilitating tax dodging.<\/a><\/p>\n Want to be a part of our campaigns, join our mailing list (below).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A global pattern of pressure, and resistance The UK isn\u2019t alone in trying to take on multinational corporations…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26447,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[5397,76,7569,1506,11856,11857,3750,3489,5,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-26446","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"tag-big-tech","9":"tag-billionaires","10":"tag-corporate","11":"tag-cost-of-living","12":"tag-digital-services-tax","13":"tag-dst","14":"tag-taxes","15":"tag-trump","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116498938081034343","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}