Historically, meetings of the largest economies in the world have been essential to reaching agreements that would incentivize prosperity and growth. That wasn’t the case this time.
The G-7 meeting agreements were light on detailed economic decisions, except on the most damaging of them all: a minimum global corporate tax. Why not an agreement on maximum global public spending?
Imposing a minimum global corporate tax of 15 percent without addressing all other taxes that governments impose before a business reaches a net profit is dangerous. Why would there be a minimum global corporate tax when subsidies are different, some countries have different or no value-added tax (VAT) rates, and the endless list of indirect taxes is completely different?
This entire sentence makes no sense, opens the door to double taxation, and penalizes the most competitive and profitable companies while having no impact on the dinosaur loss-making or poor-margin conglomerates that most governments call “strategic sectors.”
The global minimum corporate tax is also a protectionist and extractive measure. The rich nations will see little negative impact from this, as they already have their governments surrounded by large multinationals that will not suffer a massive taxation blow because subsidies and tax incentives before net income are large and generous.
Some politicians mention corporate technology giants as the ones that pay no taxes and use an effective tax rate where they put together loss-making companies with those making a profit, thus reaching an artificially low effective tax rate. Technology giants won’t pay more under this new agreement, because their taxable base will not change, their profit and loss accounts will remain similar, and, more importantly, the deductions on large investments, which are the cause of their apparently small tax payments, will not change either.
The global minimum tax rate will not hurt G-7 members or large technology giants, but it will devastate small and dynamic countries that need to attract capital and investment and that can’t afford to have the tax rate of global leading nations. Losing capital and investment will cripple their economy, and the alleged “tax revenue benefit” of raising the minimum corporate tax will disappear.
Not only will small and dynamic nations suffer from this measure, but also small and dynamic corporations, because they will have fewer reserves to invest and grow in the future the moment they generate a profit, making them weaker. Therefore, it’s a protectionist and extractive measure that benefits the already rich nations and large multinationals but disproportionately harms the small and rising nations and businesses.
Raising corporate taxes won’t reduce the debt burden. The reality of the budgets and financial position of most G-7 and G-20 countries shows that deficits continue to be elevated even in growth periods and after periods of tax increases, because government spending rises above all revenue increases.
Raising corporate taxes won’t improve growth, jobs, or productivity as shown by the above-mentioned examples but also by our recent history, specifically in the EU, nor will it generate a substantial improvement in tax revenue that, in any case, will not even scratch the surface of the existing debt.
The troubling part of the G-7 commitments is that on the one hand, they reach a unanimous agreement to increase taxes on the productive sectors, while on the other hand, they reach another unanimous agreement to continue spending even in the recovery “to create high-quality jobs.” How are they going to create high-quality jobs if they tax the high-productivity sectors and subsidize the low-productivity ones? The G-7 doesn’t seem to address rising structural imbalances, the excessive weight of government spending, or the lack of success of large entitlement programs.
An extremely dangerous idea is becoming mainstream: that all public spending is good and when stimulus plans fail to deliver, all you have to do is spend more. All we hear is: it was not enough; this time will be different; repeat.
The G-7 concludes, “Once the recovery is firmly established, we need to ensure the long-term sustainability of public finances to enable us to respond to future crises and address longer-term structural challenges, including for the benefit of future generations.”
Nice words. What’s the problem? It never happens. As we saw in the past growth period, governments spend more when the economy grows and even more when it’s in recession. The path to public finance sustainability can’t come from constantly raising direct and indirect taxes on the productive sectors and always increasing mandatory spending.
It’s sad, but the G-7 commitments look like the recipe for a very deep crisis in the not-too-distant future.
