G-20 finance ministers back plan to stop use of tax havens

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the proposal would end a ‘self-defeating international tax competition’ in which countries have for years lowered their rates to attract companies. 

New Delhi: Top finance officials representing most of the world's economy have backed a sweeping revision of international taxation that includes a 15% global minimum corporate levy to deter big companies from resorting to low-rate tax-havens. Finance ministers from the Group of 20 countries endorsed the plan at a meeting Saturday in Venice. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the proposal would end a ‘self-defeating international tax competition’ in which countries have for years lowered their rates to attract companies.  She said that it had been a race that nobody has won. “What it has done instead is to deprive us of the resources we need to invest in our people, our workforces, our infrastructure?”