Triumph in taxing times? Linked transatlantic two-level games and the taxation of the digital economy

Abstract

ABSTRACT In October 2021 136 countries reached a political agreement to transform the global tax regime for the first time since its creation. The disconnect between the digitalized economy and the global tax system was a key driver of the agreement, but it was not sufficient as negotiations only a few years earlier had failed to address the problem. This article advances a three-part explanation to resolve this puzzle. First, developments on one side of the Atlantic changed the default conditions and so increased support for compromise in the other. Second, those changes enhanced the bargaining power of higher-tax jurisdictions relative to lower-tax ones. Third, the Biden administration saw securing a multilateral agreement on minimum corporate taxes as a way to realize domestic tax objectives. The linking of the issues gave it an incentive to compromise on taxing the digital economy and paved the way for agreement.