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One of...Biden's priorities is a historic overhaul of global tax rules. The world's most powerful 20 economies are on board. But an island nation of 5 million people is standing in the way.... ....the country has successfully attracted hordes of global businesses with a corporate tax rate of just 12.5%, compared to 21% in the United States and 19% in the United Kingdom.... Now, with 132 governments around the world in agreement on a minimum corporate tax of at least 15% to ensure big business pays its fair share, Ireland is digging in its heels. "We are not in that...

Update (1310ET): Irish Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe (the current head of the Eurogroup assemblage of EU finance ministers) just issued a terse statement claiming that while Ireland supports the aims of the OECD's tax reform, it's wary of the 15% minimum global tax rate.130 nations, including China & India have signed the 15% global minimum tax plan sponsored by the US and OECD Except Ireland Ireland is smart to defend her advantage over China as a gateway to EuropeI am shocked any African Nation and UK will agree to 15% tax on FDI pic.twitter.com/vDsiea8anC — Kalu Aja (@FinPlanKaluAja1) July 1,...

Everyone knows that life isn't fair. One of the best examples of this is tax season. For individuals, it is usually a time of paperwork, worry and paying what is owed. Most taxpayers work in one place and simply file taxes there. For big companies, it is also a time of paperwork and worry. Unlike most people though, companies often work in a number of places, can scramble to move money and profits overseas and look for tax breaks in the hope that they don't owe anything. In many cases, they get away with it. Loopholes have let many US...

The European Parliment has passed a controversial copyright directive that contains provisions which force tech giants to install content filters and sets in place a potential tax on hyperlinking. The bill was passed in a final vote of 438 – 226 and will need to be implemented by individual EU member states. Critics of the directive have been laser-focused on two key provisions: Articles 11 and 13, which they have dubbed the “link tax” and “upload filter.” "The most important parts of this are Articles 11 and 13. Article 11 is intended to give publishers and papers a way to...

The EU will soon unveil a plan for taxing major internet companies like Amazon and Facebook by imposing a levy of two to six percent on revenues in every country where they operate, French finance minister Bruno Le Maire said on Sunday. “The range will be from two to six percent, but closer to two than to six,” Le Maire told the Journal du Dimanche newspaper. The European Commission has said it will present by end March an overhaul of its tax rules, which currently allow US digital economy giants to report their income from across the bloc in any...

French President Emmanuel Macron and Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar say they are ready to discuss the contentious issue of taxing internet giants after a meeting in Paris. Macron is leading the tax charge in Europe, saying it’s not fair that internet companies don’t pay taxes where they make most of their money. Countries that serve as tax shelters for companies like Apple, including Ireland, have resisted the proposed measure. …

The United States does not support a French proposal to tax the gross revenues of international tech corporations like Google and Amazon, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Saturday. The remarks come as European officials say Washington has softened in recent days on a point that has caused sharp transatlantic tensions in recent years. European authorities have targeted multinational companies that avoid taxation by seeking out cozy arrangements in low- and no-tax jurisdictions. […] In September of this year, French authorities proposed that the European Union impose taxes on gross corporate revenues because they say they have been unable to...

California on Friday expanded its market for buying and trading permits to emit greenhouse gases to include the Canadian province of Ontario. The market is the centerpiece of California’s cap-and-trade program, which aims to reduce carbon pollution over time by capping emissions and requiring companies to obtain permits to pollute. Quebec is already part of the market. California is aiming to reduce emissions by 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2030. The two Canadian provinces have similar or stricter goals. California Gov. Jerry Brown signed the agreement Friday in Quebec at a meeting with officials of both provinces, capping off...

France and Germany plan to issue a new proposal to tax internet giants so that they pay a “fair contribution” in every country where they earn money, French finance minister Bruno Le Maire said on Sunday. “We will unveil a new plan along with our German partners at the next finance ministers’ meeting in Tallinn in mid-September” for taxing technology giants including Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon, Le Maire said in a Facebook Live chat. “We propose taking the revenues of these large companies as a reference point, and use this to determine a tax level so that these companies...

6.7K Romney urges Trump to support Paris climate deal 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney on Wednesday expressed his support for the U.S. to remain in the Paris climate accord, arguing it was an opportunity to remain a leader on the world stage. “Affirmation of the Paris Agreement is not only about the climate: It is also about America being the global leader,” Romney tweeted.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday said he hoped US President Donald Trump would not rush into deciding what to do with the Paris climate agreement. “My wish is that the United States takes no hurried decision,” Macron told a news briefing after talks with Trump, in which the two leaders discussed Washington’s doubts over the 196-nation climate pact reached in late 2015. “I told the US president the importance of the deal for us, the importance of the commitment made by the international community,” he said. …

It is this solution, brilliant at the time, that leads us to Brearley’s legacy on climate change. Because over the course of the last 200 plus years, the electoral college, which provides for stronger voting power per person in more rural and less populated states, has elected four U.S. presidents who clearly lost the popular vote (1876, 1888, 2000 and 2016). Two of those elections have occurred during the period in which we have known about the causes and impacts of carbon dioxide emissions and climate change and in both cases, the impacts of those elections have very likely had...

A French diplomat competing to be the world’s top health official says a tiny international tax can help fill the World Health Organization’s coffers, a proposal aimed at bringing order to the U.N. agency’s fragmented budget. Dr. Philippe Douste-Blazy told journalists at the Foreign Ministry in Paris that “micropayments” tacked on to as-yet-undetermined international business operations could support WHO’s budget. “I’m persuaded that innovative financing can play a role in the support of WHO,” he said. …

An estimated $40 billion is needed annually to help the rapidly growing number of people needing humanitarian aid as a result of conflicts and natural disasters - and one possibility to help fill the $15 billion funding gap is a small voluntary tax on tickets for soccer games and other sports, concerts and entertainment events, airline travel, and gasoline, a U.N.-appointed panel said. The panel's report on humanitarian financing, launched Sunday by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at an event in Dubai, says the world is spending around $25 billion today to provide life-saving assistance to 125 million people devastated by...

(CNSNews.com) - At news conference in Paris on Tuesday, President Obama said "the most elegant way" to reduce carbon emissions is "to put a price on it." He was responding to a reporter who asked Obama, "I wonder if you see any political path back home toward putting a price on carbon?" "I have long believed that the most elegant way to drive innovation and to reduce carbon emissions is to put a price on it. This is a classic market failure," Obama replied. "If you open up an Econ 101 textbook, it will say the market's very good about...

(CNN)—NASA's rockets are astounding machines, capable of blasting into space at thousands of miles per hour and withstanding temperatures twice the melting point of steel. But they can't take off underwater. Rising sea levels caused by melting ice caps threaten to disrupt a handful of NASA launch sites along U.S. coastlines, the space agency warns. In the coming years, launch facilities at Florida's Kennedy Space Center and other places may need to be retrofitted or even moved inland, NASA says. "Every NASA center has its own set of vulnerabilities, and some are more at risk than others," NASA climatologist...

(CNSNews.com) -White House Science Advisor John Holdren says the global goal is to have world-wide carbon dioxide emissions “close to zero by 2100.” As part of the White House “Open For Questions” video posted last week Holdren was asked: “Do you know the rate of reduction in carbon emissions the world would have to achieve in order to prevent an unstoppable process of methane release from the Arctic areas?” “No one knows for sure how much warming would be enough to produce this result, but it's thought to be considerably less likely to happen if the ultimate warming is less...

Antarctic sea ice reached a record high this year, topping 20 million square kilometers (nearly 8 million square miles) in September — a milestone it hadn't touched since 1979. It's a fact climate change deniers are fond of repeating. If the planet is warming, shouldn't sea ice be melting away rather than growing? It's true that the phenomenon is a confusing one — but it's no proof that climate change isn't happening. In fact, scientists believe that climate change is actually responsible for the strange events down in the Antarctic. The first thing to note is that sea ice and...

Europe’s leaders are about to consign the Earth to the risk of dangerous climate change, a UN expert says. Prof Jim Skea, a vice-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, says the EU’s plan to cut CO2 emissions 40% by 2030 is too weak. He says it will commit future governments to “extraordinary and unprecedented” emissions cuts. The Commission rejected the claim, saying the 40% target puts Europe on track for long-term climate goals. Prof Skea believes governments are setting targets by what appears to be politically achievable rather than what is necessary to transform the way we make...

Given the good relations Gibraltar has now established with the EU in our own right, our government needs to use those to ward off a new attack by Spain. The Ministro de Hacienda y Administraciones Publicas, Cristobal Montoro, says that Spain has signed an accord with other European countries to form a working group to force the EU to eradicate what Spain calls “paraisos fiscales”. Montoro has Gibraltar firmly in his sights, and confirmed Spanish media reports that the Agencia Tributaria had formed a working group to stamp out tax evasion; specifically, the millions of euros Madrid insists are implanted...