Merkel hopes to step up work on digital tax with Biden administration

[January 26, 2021]  BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday she hoped to intensify work with the U.S. President Joe Biden's new administration on minimum taxation of digital companies.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel addresses a news conference at the Bundespressekonferenz, about the current situation of the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Berlin, Germany, January 21, 2021. Michael Kappeler/Pool via REUTERS

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development outlined last year the first major rewriting in a generation of international rules for taxing cross-border businesses like Google, Apple and Facebook.

"I hope that with the new American administration we can now continue and intensify the work of the OECD on the minimum taxation of digital companies," Merkel told this week's World Economic Forum event by video conference.

She added that she hoped "that we will succeed in once again anchoring the central role of competition law globally and preventing the emergence of monopolies."

(Writing by Paul Carrel; Editing by Thomas Escritt)

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