While, a few days before the presidential election, the McKinsey case embarrassed Emmanuel Macron, the President of the Republic was a candidate to succeed him, hoping that salvation would come in part from Brussels. The Europeans have already discussed for several weeks a draft directive that would impose a minimum tax of 15% on companies with a turnover of more than 750 million euros, and thus would allow, as the head of state wants, to force McKinsey to pay taxes in France.
Emmanuel Macron was counting on the 27 finance ministers, who met in Luxembourg on Tuesday, April 5, to reach an agreement on the subject. Although Bruno Le Maire put all his energy and knowledge to get results, he did not achieve his goals.
Several member states – Estonia, Malta and Sweden – which expressed hesitation at the last Ecofin meeting on March 15, got amendments, including the assurance that the text would enter into force not on March 1Verse January, but on December 31, 2023. So they raised their objections on Tuesday, as Hungary had already done in March. There is still Poland that stands alone today in opposition to the introduction of minimum taxes on multinational corporations. In fact, Warsaw thus bans the text because, in tax matters, the decisions of society are taken unanimously.
Another reason to ban
During the meeting of finance ministers, Bruno Le Maire tried to show strength, hoping to return Warsaw to a more positive attitude. Ministers or representatives from fifteen countries – Estonia, Malta, Sweden, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Greece, Latvia, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Croatia, Portugal and Ireland – spoke in support of the draft directive. Then the French minister gave the floor to Magdalena Rzechkowska, the Polish Minister of State for Finance, who read a text, in a monotonous and uncomfortable tone, to repeat her refusal.
“It’s been five years since the president and I have been fighting for a minimum corporate tax rate in Europe.”, Bruno Le Maire summoned on Tuesday. In October 2021, 136 OECD countries agreed to this target, and thus the Europeans decided to translate it into a directive as quickly as possible. They also agreed that digital giants and other multinational corporations pay taxes in the countries where they make money and don’t ship all of their earnings into a more permissive atmosphere.
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