By Andrea Shalal
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States is making every effort to ensure that countries suspend or cancel discriminatory taxes on digital services, but will retain optional tariffs if that does not happen, said Wednesday US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.
Yellen told the Senate Finance Committee that she had engaged in “very constructive” bilateral conversations with the Irish Minister of Finance on the issue, and believed that the entire European Union would support in the end. includes an increase in global minimum taxes, as proposed by the United States.
She said she hoped for progress on the tax issue, which is being negotiated under the leadership of the Organization for Cooperation and Development, by the meeting of leaders of the Group of 20 major economies in October.
US President Joe Biden and other leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) advanced economies on Sunday approved a pledge by G7 finance officials to work for a global minimum tax of at least 15% as part of the inclusive framework G20 / OECD.
Yellen said the steps the United States is taking to raise its minimum corporate tax would help give momentum to a general agreement. She said the United States is also proposing changes to prevent foreign companies working in the United States from shifting profits overseas.
Asked about rising consumer and durable goods prices, Yellen said the Biden administration was monitoring inflation “very carefully” and taking the issue seriously.
“No one wants to go back to the bad days of high inflation of the 1970s,” Yellen told the committee.
She said the current explosion in inflation reflected the difficulty of reopening the U.S. economy, and that the Biden administration was also taking action to address bottlenecks in some supply chains that had caused a price increase.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; additional reporting by Dan Burns Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Diane Craft)
