US official on the influence of NGOs on taxing multinationals

Our tweet of the day:

The last, truncated paragraph in that tweet reads:

“Continued media coverage about alleged tax abuse, increasingly aggressive actions from tax administrations and the general terms of debate about standard international tax practices show that multinationals have lost control of the “narrative,” Stack said.”

Not only that, but the story begins like with a similarly eye-popping statement:

“The U.S. business community has lost the global public relations battle on international tax planning—and should consider whether a proposed global minimum tax would be better for their interests than continuing with the status quo, a top Treasury Department official said.”

The business community has for so long been busy eating everyone else’s breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and getting everyone else to pick up the tab, that it’s nice to see the tables turned a bit.

This has been achieved, above all, by virtue of taking the debates outside of fiddly, technical arenas and into the economic and political arenas: where it matters most.

But let’s not forget that despite our collective impact on setting the political agenda, the abuses remain rampant. This fight has only just begun.