Biden’s international tax plan falters, ushering in radical plans
TAXING
This time last year, we were all cock-a-hoop about President Joe Biden’s international tax plan, which would stop multinationals playing countries off against each other and force them to pay at least 15% of their profits to support the societies in which they operate. A new era beckoned: democratically elected politicians would regain primacy over capitalism’s elite; tax havens would wither; societies would rebound thanks to the investment enabled by the flood of money.
There was always going to be a time when such rhetoric needed translation into the sordid dialect of politics, but it happened far more conclusively than even the most cynical of observers (i.e., me) anticipated.
For the world to change, the United States had to change. For the United States to change, the European Union had to change. For the European Union to change, EU members had to agree, which means countries like Hungary have to agree. So the future of the world depends on Viktor Orban, the lilli-Putin of Budapest, who’s sulking because he’s so foul that other Europeans won’t play with him anymore.
- "The U.S. was looking across the ocean at the EU and seeing the troubles of getting policies through the EU council and saying, 'Well, if the EU can't move forward, let's not move too quickly ourselves’," said Daniel Bunn of the Tax Foundation.
There are various options involving EU procedural technicalities, but they aren’t imminent or likely. Without progress in Europe, it’s hard to see the senate ratifying the deal; and without the U.S., it’s hard to see the U.K., Switzerland or anywhere else signing off on it. Perhaps some EU countries could start their own game and leave Orban out of it, but it’s not clear that would even work. So.