华盛顿——美国财政部长珍妮特·耶伦(Janet Yellen)周一敦促采用最低全球企业所得税，这一努力至少部分抵消了拜登政府提议提高美国企业税率可能带来的任何不利影响。

耶伦援引“30年来各国竞相降低企业税率以吸引跨国企业”的例子称，拜登政府将与20国集团(G20)中的其他发达经济体合作，设定最低税率。

耶伦在芝加哥全球事务委员会的一次虚拟演讲中说:“竞争力不仅仅是总部设在美国的公司在全球并购投标中与其他公司的表现。”“这是为了确保政府拥有稳定的税收体系，能够筹集到足够的收入，用于投资基本公共产品。”

这是耶伦迄今为止在国际事务上的最高姿态，正值世界银行和国际货币基金组织(IMF)春季会议以虚拟形式开始之际。

耶伦表示:“与其他国家合作，结束税收竞争和企业税基侵蚀的压力非常重要。”。

乔·拜登总统提议将美国公司税率从21%上调至28%，部分取消了特朗普政府在2017年税收立法中从35%下调的举措。拜登还希望设定美国海外企业所得税的最低税率，并使企业更难将收入转移到海外。这一增加将有助于为白宫雄心勃勃的2.3万亿美元基础设施提案买单。

加州大学伯克利分校的经济学家艾伦·奥尔巴赫(Alan Auerbach)表示，耶伦的言论本质上是对由37个国家组成的经济合作与发展组织(OECD)已经进行了大约两年的谈判的认可。

拜登的美国公司税提案包括将特朗普税法中包含的美国最低税收从10.5%提高到21%。经合组织谈判的一个焦点是其他国家是否会采用类似的最低标准。拜登的公司税措施还将惩罚其他没有最低公司税的国家，对它们在美国的子公司征收更重的税。

奥尔巴赫说，经合组织帮助促进了围绕银行保密等问题的其他协议。

“这种事情是有先例的，”奥尔巴赫说。“但这将是一件大事，因为这将让各国以前所未有的方式协调其税收体系。”

同样在周一，拜登表示，他“一点也不”担心更高的公司税率会导致一些美国公司迁往海外，尽管耶伦提议的全球最低公司税旨在防止这种情况发生。

“没有证据证明这一点...这太奇怪了，”拜登在回答记者提问时说。

根据右倾智库税务基金会(Tax Foundation)的数据，特朗普政府的企业减税措施将美国的税率从经合组织国家中的最高水平降至第13位。然而，许多分析师认为，很少有大型美国跨国公司支付全部税款。

“财富500强中有51或52家公司三年来每天一分钱都没付过?”拜登说。“加油。”

R-Penn参议员帕特·图梅。表示耶伦的提议不太可能在海外取得太大进展。他还表示，如果共和党在即将到来的选举中重新获得国会多数席位，他们应该扭转任何公司税上调的趋势选举南

图梅说:“剧透警告:这项努力可能会失败，即使有某种协议，它也不会有约束力，因为它不是一项条约。”。

与此同时，耶伦淡化了拜登政府国内议程刺激通胀上升的潜力，其中也包括上月批准的1.9万亿美元的COVID纾困计划。自救助法案通过以来，前财政部长拉里·萨默斯等人就提出了这种担忧。

“我非常怀疑这将导致通胀压力，”耶伦说，指的是政府的基础设施提案。“长期以来，问题一直是通胀率过低，而不是通胀率过高。”

耶伦还表示，美国将在国内外加大努力应对气候变化，“在旁观了四年之后”

耶伦说，财政部将努力“促进资本流向气候相关投资，而不是碳密集型投资”。这种做法引起了国会共和党议员的愤怒，他们表示，这威胁到美国石油和天然气行业获得所需贷款的能力。

耶伦还指出，许多发展中国家在为其人口接种疫苗方面落后，并且也经历了这一流行病带来的严峻经济后果。耶伦说，今年全球将有多达1.5亿人陷入极端贫困。

耶伦说:“结果很可能是一场更深、更持久的危机，债务问题越来越多，贫困问题越来越严重，不平等现象越来越严重。”。

她说，拜登政府支持国际货币基金组织建立6500亿美元的新贷款能力来解决这些问题。国会中的许多共和党人反对新的拨款，认为大部分资金将流向相对富裕的发展中国家，如中国。

耶伦承认，额外的信贷将分配给每个国际货币基金组织成员，但他认为，“大量资源将流向最贫困的国家。”她补充说，各国也可以向受灾最严重的国家捐赠一些资金，她预计许多国家会这样做。.

Yellen calls for minimum global corporate income tax

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Monday urged the adoption of a minimum global corporate income tax, an effort to at least partially offset any disadvantages that might arise from the Biden administration's proposed increase in the U.S. corporate tax rate.

Citing a “30-year race to the bottom” in which countries have slashed corporate tax rates in an effort to attract multinational businesses, Yellen said the Biden administration would work with other advanced economies in the Group of 20 to set a minimum.

“Competitiveness is about more than how U.S.-headquartered companies fare against other companies in global merger and acquisition bids,” Yellen said in a virtual speech to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. “It is about making sure that governments have stable tax systems that raise sufficient revenue to invest in essential public goods.”

The speech was Yellen's highest-profile so far on international affairs, and came just as the spring meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund began in a virtual format.

“It is important to work with other countries to end the pressures of tax competition and corporate tax base erosion,” Yellen said.

President Joe Biden has proposed hiking the U.S. corporate tax rate to 28% from 21%, partially undoing the Trump administration's cut from 35% in its 2017 tax legislation. Biden also wants to set a minimum U.S. tax on overseas corporate income, and to make it harder for companies to shift earnings offshore. The increase would help pay for the White House's ambitious $2.3 trillion infrastructure proposal.

Yellen’s remarks essentially serve as an endorsement of negotiations that have been underway at the 37-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development for roughly two years, said Alan Auerbach, an economist at the University of California at Berkeley.

Biden's U.S. corporate tax proposal includes an increase to the U.S. minimum tax that was included in Trump's tax law, from 10.5% to 21%. One focus of the OECD talks is whether other countries will adopt similar minimums. Biden's corporate tax measure would also penalize other countries without a minimum corporate tax by more heavily taxing their subsidiaries in the U.S.

Auerbach said that the OECD has helped foster other agreements around issues such as bank secrecy.

“There is precedent for this sort of thing,” Auerbach said. “But this would be a big deal because it would get countries to coordinate their tax systems in ways they haven’t before.”

Also on Monday, Biden said he is “not at all” concerned that a higher corporate tax rate would cause some U.S. companies to relocate overseas, though Yellen's proposed global minimum corporate tax is intended to prevent that from happening.

“There's no evidence to that ... that's bizarre,” Biden said in response to a question from reporters.

According to the Tax Foundation, a right-leaning think tank, the Trump administration’s corporate tax reduction lowered the U.S. rate from the highest among the OECD countries to the 13th highest. Many analysts have argued, however, that few large U.S. multinationals paid the full tax.

“We have 51 or 52 corporations from the Fortune 500 who haven’t paid a single penny a day for three years?” Biden said. “Come on.”

Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Penn., said that Yellen’s proposal was unlikely to make much progress overseas. He also said Republicans should reverse any corporate tax hike if they regain a congressional majority in upcomingelections.

“Spoiler alert: This effort will likely fail and even if there is some sort of agreement, it will be non-binding because it is not a treaty,” Toomey said.

Yellen, meanwhile, downplayed the potential for the Biden administration’s domestic agenda, which also includes a $1.9 trillion COVID relief package approved last month, to spur higher inflation. Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, among others, has raised such concerns since the relief bill passed.

“I strongly doubt that it's going to cause inflationary pressures,” Yellen said, referring to the administration's infrastructure proposal. “The problem for a very long time has been inflation that’s too low, not inflation that’s too high.”

Yellen also said the United States will step up its efforts at home and overseas to fight climate change, “after sitting on the sidelines for four years.”

Treasury will work to “promote the flow of capital toward climate-aligned investments and away from carbon-intensive investments," Yellen said. That approach has raised the ire of GOP members of Congress, who say it threatens the ability of the U.S. oil and gas industry to access needed lending.

Yellen also noted that many developing nations are lagging in vaccinating their populations, and have also experienced harsh economic consequences from the pandemic. As many as 150 million people worldwide will fall into extreme poverty this year, Yellen said.

“The result will likely be a deeper and longer-lasting crisis, with mounting problems of indebtedness, more entrenched poverty, and growing inequality,” Yellen said.

The Biden administration supports the creation of $650 billion in new lending capacity at the IMF to address such issues, she said. Many Republicans in Congress oppose the new allotment, arguing that much of the funding would flow to relatively better-off developing countries, such as China.

Yellen acknowledged that the additional credit would be distributed to each IMF member, but argued that “significant resources will go to the poorest countries most in need.” Nations can also donate some of their funds to the hardest-hit countries, which she expects many will do, she added.