GOP Lawmakers Slam OECD Tax Plan While on European Junket

House Ways and Means Committee Republicans are making sure European officials understand their opposition to an international tax agreement negotiated through the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.   At meetings in Paris and Berlin, the Republicans said they will not support the Pillar One and Pillar Two tax agreements.

The lawmakers met last week with OECD officials in Paris and in Berlin with German Finance Minister Christian Lindner, Federal Minister for Special Affairs of the Chancellery Wolfgang Schmidt and Chairman Alois Rainer and members of the German Bundestag’s Finance Committee.

“During these meetings, members made clear that the OECD’s proposed global tax deal would give foreign competitors like China an economic advantage because they would never fully comply with the agreement,” according to a statement. “Meanwhile, the United States would surrender over $120 billion of tax revenue over the next decade.”

The lawmakers made clear that Congress will not pass into law any OECD tax deal that permits foreign countries to impose unfair taxes on US workers and make the United States less competitive in the global economy.

“I will never allow the current version of the OECD global minimum tax to ever become law in the United States,” Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo) said. “The last thing we want is instability in the global economy. But if this global minimum tax starts being passed in other countries, it's going to create great instability, at least with the United States, because our committee will move forward with Tax and Trade mechanisms to make sure that we are making whole our companies that are being targeted by other countries. Which means this tax is creating exactly what it's supposed to be preventing.”