What is the outlook for taxing US multinationals under a Joe Biden presidency? Even as the noise and belligerence subside, some fundamental differences of view will persist across the North Atlantic. What can firms using Luxembourg as an EU base expect from the new US administration?
‘There will be a difference in the way the world perceives the approach of Trump and Biden,’ said Antoine Dupuis, a partner with the tax advisor Atoz. While the former enjoyed focusing on unilateral measures, the new team is likely to seek to create a climate of greater trust, calm and predictability. But that is not to say that there will not be disaccord with the EU and countries like Luxembourg, one of the leading EU and global business hubs used by US firms.
A study* from researchers at UCLA and the University of California Berkeley found that the share of income generated by US multinationals’ income in places like Luxembourg, Ireland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Singapore, the Caribbean, Puerto Rico and more has risen from 30% in 2000 to 54% last year. Even before the pandemic, there was strong political desire to ‘do something’ on tax avoidance by multinationals, and this pressure has increased this year. Joe Biden made much of his Irish roots during the campaign, but it will be as US president that he views how Ireland and other EU countries are used to ease multinationals’ tax obligations.
Campaign promises
During the election campaign, candidate Biden announced a broad tax plan featuring measures that would depart significantly from the policies of the current administration. From a corporate tax point of view, the headline rate would rise from 21% to 28%, and 15% alternative minimum tax would apply to corporate book income of $100 million and higher. All foreign income earned by US companies’ overseas operations would be taxed at 21%, twice the current rate.
‘The shift from 21 to 28% is something we can expect to become a reality,’ noted Dupuis, even though he points out that policy making might be difficult given the potential for deadlock in Congress. Given that the average corporate tax rate in the EU is around 22% this could be a significant move.
Digital tax
‘Maybe more interesting from a Luxembourg and European perspective will be how the Biden administration participates in OECD discussions regarding the BEPS [base erosion and profit shifting] project and the review of digital tax ideas,” he added. This could include introducing a minimum tax rate for multinationals’ subsidiary companies, regardless of the nature of their income.
Also, even the Obama administration opposed suggestions from Europe for a digital tax, so a consensual change in this direction is unlikely. This point is underlined by several of the Biden transition team being seconded from leading tech firms, including the likes of Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet. Dupuis believes one would need to be ‘quite optimistic, frankly’ to expect a wide ranging deal at the OECD level on this.
New trade tensions?
So in the absence of an agreement, it is here that the messaging and the atmosphere from Washington DC could be crucial. ‘We have already seen how several EU countries have taken unilateral measures, especially in the area of digital tax,’ Dupuis pointed out. He fears that a spread of uncoordinated measures could mean higher levels of uncertainty. The risk is for double taxation and other inefficiencies to proliferate, which would complicate life for businesses and consumers, without substantially raising tax income.
If things really got out of hand, there could be moves towards trade tensions. ‘The US already had problems with state aid investigations by the European Commission into mainly US firms, and moves to create a digital tax might be seen as another wave of attacks against the US,’ Dupuis noted.
There is also the question about whether the system can be fixed. One of the reasons given by Trump for his corporate tax cut from 35% to 21% was to encourage the repatriation of foreign earned taxation held overseas. While Dupuis noted that this did indeed happen, he says the jury is out whether this contributed directly to boost the US real economy. He notes that often these funds were used to fund share buybacks or to increase dividend payments.
‘Everybody expects the overall tax burden to increase, but it’s just a question of who will be targeted the most,’ said Dupuis. Although the tone of discussions will change, the fundamentals will probably not be much different regarding the differing interests of Europeans and the US.
*Ending Corporate Tax Avoidance and Tax Competition:A Plan to Collect the Tax Deficit of Multinationals