Amazon, Facebook To Pay More Taxes After New G-7 Deal. What They Say

The G-7 pact marks a step to re-write a global system that critics said allowed big companies to save billions of dollars in tax bills by shifting jurisdictions.

The Group of Seven rich nations secured a landmark deal that could help countries collect more taxes from big companies and enable governments to impose levies on U.S. tech giants such as Amazon.com Inc. and Facebook Inc. The agreement by the G-7 finance ministers in London satisfies a U.S. demand for a minimum corporate tax rate of "at least 15%" on foreign earnings and paves the way for levies on multinationals in countries where they make money, instead of just where they are headquartered. The deal is aimed at modernizing the century-old international tax code and cools transatlantic tensions that threatened to spill into a trade war under Donald Trump. But key details are still to be nailed down, more nations must sign on, and full implementation could take years. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, among the finance chiefs who hailed the announcement as an unprecedented step, said a final accord on which companies could see their profits taxed outside their home countries would include the likes of Amazon and Facebook.