In partnership with the World Taxpayers Associations, Americans for Tax Reform is leading a large international coalition of 76 conservative groups and activists from 40 different nations to oppose the implementation of a global minimum corporate tax rate. The coalition released a letter today urging Congress to reject the global minimum tax proposal of at least 15 percent that the governments of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States agreed on at a Group of Seven (G7) meeting.

Now 130 countries have signed on to the OECD's Pillar One and Pillar Two agreements to tax American multinationals and impose a global minimum tax. Roughly 65% of the companies paying the new tax are American companies. President Biden is allowing foreign nations to tax US companies to subsidize their spending or allows them to lower their taxes.

If this agreement would be enacted it would be a huge win for Communist China because shifts parts of the US tax base abroad and makes the US less competitive globally. 

The coalition's message is clear – This agreement would significantly damage the valuable tax competition among countries and would cause undue harm to businesses, workers, and economies around the world. A global minimum tax would greatly curtail the force of tax competition. This competition between nations offers a critical check on the power of governments and it is vital for ensuring efficient and reasonable levels of taxation.

Grover Norquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform described President Biden’s efforts to impose a global minimum tax as follows: 

"Cartels that keep prices high hurt consumers. Creating a Tax OPEC of governments to avoid tax competition is bad for citizens and taxpayers. Competition drives out self-serving rent-seekers in business and in government. Putting a floor on the cost of government is like putting a floor on the cost of oil or wheat--bad for consumers. Why create a new OPEC jacking up the cost of government rather than oil."

You can view the full letter here or below. 

Dear Members of Congress,

We, the undersigned organizations, representing taxpayers and consumers across the globe, strongly oppose the creation of a global minimum corporate tax rate agreement by the G7 nations. This agreement would significantly damage the valuable tax competition among countries and would cause undue harm to businesses, workers, and economies around the world.

On June 5th, 2021, the governments of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States agreed at a Group of Seven (G7) meeting to institute a global minimum corporate tax rate of at least 15 percent. The official 2021 G7 Summit will occur in the United Kingdom from June 11th to 13th. Leaders from the G7 countries are expected to promote an even more comprehensive agreement on international taxation at the G20 meeting in July.

A global minimum tax would greatly curtail the force of tax competition. This competition between nations offers a critical check on the power of governments and it is vital for ensuring efficient and reasonable levels of taxation. According to the nonpartisan Tax Foundation, “Tax competition can help to keep taxes closer to their optimal level, constraining wasteful government excess.” Instituting a global minimum tax would reduce pressure on higher-tax governments, and overall corporate tax rates would rise to inefficient and confiscatory levels.

The proposed 15 percent minimum tax rate would be particularly detrimental to countries such as Ireland, Bulgaria, and Hungary that currently keep their corporate tax rates at lower, more competitive rates. A global minimum tax also threatens poorer, developing countries that need to maintain high growth rates in order to be lifted out of poverty. Cutting corporate tax rates leads to an increase in investment, productivity, and economic growth, output, and ultimately higher standards of living.

Low corporate tax rates are an important tool for developing countries to improve the lives of their citizens, and a global minimum tax rate would impair the effectiveness of that tool. It’s also important to point out that countries like China have no intention to agree on or implement such a global minimum tax and any other smart country will immediately lower its corporate tax rate and reap the benefits.

The G7s agreement on a global minimum corporate tax rate should be abandoned and should be rejected by the G20 in July. Individual countries should be able to follow their own open democratic processes to pursue the tax rules they see fit and not be forced to cede sovereignty to a group that might not act in their own interests.

International bodies should not infringe on the tax systems of sovereign countries and should be focused on facilitating tax competition, free trade, and economic prosperity for countries of all sizes. 

Grover Norquist
President, Americans for Tax Reform (United States)

Cristina Berechet
Secretary General, World Taxpayers Associations (Global)

Brent Wm. Gardner
Chief Government Affairs Officer, Americans for Prosperity (United States)

Jonas Torrico
Executive Director, Asociación Argentina de Contribuyentes (Argentina)

Ozlem Yilmaz
General Coordinator, Association for Liberal Thinking (Turkey)

Barbara Kolm
Director, Austrian Economics Center (Austria)

Julia Kril
President, BETA Ukraine (Ukraine)

Pieter Cleppe
Editor-in-Chief, Brussels Report (Belgium)

Troy Lanigan
President, Canada Strong and Free Network (Canada)

Scott Hennig
President & CEO, Canadian Taxpayers Federation (Canada)

Rocio Guijarro
General Manager, Cedice Libertad (Venezuela)

Daniel Mitchell
Chairman, Center for Freedom and Prosperity (United States)

Roberto Salinas
Executive Director, Center for Latin America, Atlas Network (Mexico)

Edo Omercevic
Director, Center for Public Policies and Economic Analyses (Bosnia & Herzegovina)

Tomasz Kolodziejczuk
Founder, Center for Capitalism (Poland)

Ignacio Arsuaga
President, CitizenGO (Spain)

Chip Ford
President/Executive Director, Citizens for Limited Taxation (United States)

Andrés Barrientos
Cofounder, Ciudadano Austral Foundation (Chile)

Marek Tatala
Vice President, Civil Development Forum (Poland)

Prasad Dasanayaka
Partner, Dasanayaka Associates (Sri Lanka)

Margherit Saltini
Secretary General, Democratic Youth Committee of Europe (Italy)

José Andrade
Executive Director, Ecuadorian Institute of Political Economy (Ecuador)

Gary Kavanagh
Director, Edmund Burke Institute (Ireland)

Mario Alvino Fantini
Editor-in-Chief, The European Conservative (Austria)

Diego Sanchez de la Cruz
CEO, Foro Regulación Inteligente (Spain)

Emilio Caviglia
Director, FREE Argentina (Argentina)

Gabriel Maldonado
Director Ejecutivo, Free Fundación (Venezuela)

Máté Hajba
Director, Free Market Foundation (Hungary)

Chris Hattingh
Deputy Director, Free Market Foundation South Africa (South Africa)

Elena Toledo
Executive Director, Fundación Eleutéra (Honduras)

Francisco Isetta
President, Fundación FREE (Uruguay)

Federico Fernandez
President, Fundación Internacional Bases (Argentina)

Juan Pina
Secretary-General, Fundación para el Avance de la Libertad (Spain)

Slobodan Franeta
Chairman, Global Communication Network (Montenegro)

Richard Zundritsch
Director, Hayek Institute (Austria)

Scott Kaufman
Legislative Director, Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association (United States)

Shantha Kumar
President, India Tax Payer (India)

Svetla Kostadinova
Executive Director, Institute for Market Economics (Bulgaria)

Krassen Stanchev
Professor, University of Sofia (Bulgaria)

Armen Arzumanyan
Chairman, Institute of Nations (Armenia)

Maria Clara Escobar Pelaez
Executive Director, Instituto de Ciencia Polvetica (Colombia)

Jose Tapia
Executive Director, Instituto de Libre Empresa (Peru)

Federico Rabino
CEO, Instituto Fernando de la Mora (Paraguay)

Alejandro Chafuen
President, International Freedom Educational Foundation (United States)

Nicolas Lecaussin Director, IREF (France)

Masaru Uchiyama
President, Japanese for Tax Reform (Japan)

Nicos Rompapas
Executive Director, KEFiM – Markos Dragoumis (Greece)

Shari Williams
Executive Director, Krieble Foundation (United States)

Oliver Kessler
Director, Liberales Institut (Switzerland)

Camilo Guzman
Executive Director, Libertank (Colombia)

Patrick Mardini
CEO, LIMS (Lebanon)

Zoran Low
Executive Manager, Lipa, Croatian Taxpayers Association (Croatia)

Vladimir Maciel
Head, Mackenzie Center for Economic Freedom (Brazil)

Daniele Capezzone Cofounder, Mercatus (Italy)

Bienvenido Oplas Jr.
President, Minimal Government Thinkers (Philippines)

Pete Sepp
President, National Taxpayers Union (United States)

Jordan Williams
Executive Director, New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union (New Zealand)

Andrea Gabba
Co-Founder, Osservatore Repubblicano (Italy)

Yuya Watase
President, Pacific Alliance Institute (Japan)

Pascal Salin
Honorary Professor, Paris-Dauphine University (France)

Juan Pina
Secretary General, Unión de Contribuyentes (Spain)

Lorenzo Montanari
Executive Director, Property Rights Alliance (United States)

Skafti Hardarson
Chairman, Samtök Skattgreiðenda (Iceland)

Maureen Blum
President, Strategic Coalitions & Initiatives LLC (United States)

Krassen Stanchev
Professor, Sofia University (Bulgaria)

Anders Ydstedt
Chairman, Svensk Tidskrift (Sweden)

John O’Connell
Chief Executive, Taxpayers’ Alliance (United Kingdom)

Manu Guar
President, Taxpayers Association of Bharat (India)

David Williams
President, Taxpayers Protection Alliance (United States)

Ralph Benko
Chairman, The Capitalist League (United States)

Giuseppe Sabella Director, Think-in (Italy)

Mykhailo Lavrovskyi
CEO, Ukrainian Economic Freedoms Foundation (Ukraine)

Dick Patten
President, American Business Defense Council (United States)

Christopher Lingle
Professor of Economics, Universidad Francisco Marroquin (United States)

Manuel Rosales
President and CEO, Verissimo (United States)

Tomasz Wroblewski
CEO, Warsaw Enterprise Institute (Poland)

Americans for Tax Reform today led a coalition of 23 organizations urging the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) to follow the common-sense recommendations of the Small Business Administration and seek a court order to allow vaping manufacturers to keep products on the market while their Pre Market Tobacco Authorizations (PMTA) reviews are in progress.  The FDA has acknowledged it is unlikely to complete all authorizations by the September 9 deadline, meaning thousands of businesses, who did the right thing, and completed all legal requirements, would be prohibited from selling their life-saving products merely due to FDA delays in processing their application. 

The letter acknowledged that FDA has promised to exercise discretion in enforcement, but asserted that, “This does not provide the degree of certainty necessary for businesses who have complied with all relevant regulations and have not received authorization due to processing delays by FDA. If an extension is not granted, there could be devastating consequences for businesses, particularly small businesses. Furthermore, any potential reduction in the supply of safe alternatives to tobacco could have a negative impact on public health across the United States and lead to an increase in tobacco-related mortality.” 

The letter continued, “There is no final rule in place governing the PMTA process and therefore it is possible that a significant number of products may be removed from the market following the deadline. Millions of consumers who depend on ENDS products for their health and thousands of businesses who depend on these products for their livelihood are threatened by this needless bureaucratic uncertainty. The only sure way to avert a disastrous outcome is for the FDA to obtain a court order allowing it to extend the existing moratorium on enforcement by another year.” 

“The vaping industry,” the letter notes, “unlike many others, was created by small businesses, and these same small businesses continue to drive innovation in the market. Without these entrepreneurs, the vape industry will be consolidated into a few large corporations, causing prices to rise and consumer choice to decrease.” 

The letter concluded by drawing attention to the science on vaping, which shows e-cigarettes to be 95% safer than combustible cigarettes and two to four times as effective at helping smokers quit than traditional nicotine replacement therapies. With the potential to save 6.6 million American lives, according to an analysis from Georgetown University Medical Center, and reduce socioeconomic disparities in healthcare, adult access to vaping must be preserved.  

The full letter and list of signatories can be read here. 

On Monday, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington dismissed the Federal Trade Commission’s complaint against Facebook, alleging that the technology company abuses its monopoly power to squash its competitors. The FTC has until July 29 to file an amended complaint.  

Boasberg, appointed by former President Obama, dismissed the complaint because the FTC had no evidence to prove its assertion that Facebook had in excess of 60 percent of the market the FTC calls “personal social networking services.” 

In his dismissal, Boasberg says: “The FTC’s complaint says almost nothing concrete on the key question of how much power Facebook actually had, and still has, in a properly defined antitrust product market. It is almost as if the agency expects the court to simply nod to the conventional wisdom that Facebook is a monopolist.” 

In response, some lawmakers seized on the dismissal as justification for a drastic rewrite of antitrust law. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) tweeted that the dismissal is proof that “our antitrust laws need to be updated after years of bad precedent.” Several other lawmakers renewed the call for weaponizing antitrust law in the face of the dismissal. 

Translation: “the government lost an antitrust case, so we need to rewrite antitrust law to make the government win every time.” 

Klobuchar’s “Competition and Antitrust Law Enforcement Act” would flip the burden of proof in certain monopolization cases from the plaintiff to the defendant, meaning that courts would presume companies guilty of alleged anticompetitive conduct until proven innocent. 

The bill also relieves antitrust enforcers from defining the relevant market a company is ostensibly monopolizing. The FTC’s paper-thin case couldn’t properly define the social media market that Facebook supposedly dominates, which is probably why Klobuchar wants to release antitrust enforcers from having to do so.

Worst of all, none of the left’s antitrust plans address real and legitimate conservative anger over Big Tech censorship. They would simply give Biden bureaucrats sweeping new power to pick economic winners and losers to the detriment of American shoppers. 

The dismissal of the FTC’s complaint against Facebook gives us a few takeaways. 

First, the FTC’s complaint was dismissed because enforcers could not provide evidence for its claim that Facebook dominates 60 percent of the social media market. This is not evidence that antitrust law needs to be rewritten, it is evidence that the FTC was unprepared for court. 

Second, Article III judges are a huge obstacle to the left’s plot to rewrite antitrust law, even judges appointed by liberal presidents. This is a big reason why the left wants to shift crucial antitrust enforcement decisions from neutral judges to partisan bureaucrats. 

Third, the dismissal proves that antitrust law is working as intended, not broken. Consumer welfare remains the priority when assessing alleged anticompetitive conduct. Breakups are a tool of antitrust enforcement, not a goal. It should be difficult for the government to break up companies, especially considering the acquisitions the FTC seeks to undo happened with FTC approval almost a decade ago.

Ultimately, the FTC’s complaint against Facebook fell apart because enforcers could not get their facts straight, not because antitrust law is broken. Conservatives should continue to reject efforts to weaponize antitrust law for Democrat political gain.

Americans for Tax Reform, the Open Competition Center, and Digital Liberty today submitted comments to Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan urging the Commission to leave a 2015 bipartisan agreement in place that limits the FTC’s antitrust enforcement authority. 

Section 5 of the FTC Act outlaws “unfair methods of competition or in commerce” (UMC), but does not list specific business practices that fall under the UMC definition. Instead, the statute allows the FTC to make that determination on a case-by-case basis.  

The bipartisan 2015 statement limits the FTC’s “standalone” UMC authority in three crucial ways when addressing anticompetitive conduct that violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the Sherman and Clayton Acts. 

Revoking this important agreement will send two troubling signals. First, that the FTC is moving towards a European-style antitrust approach that props up inefficient competitors and disregards consumer harm. Second, that the FTC is actively working to shed all limits on its authority when it comes to antitrust enforcement. 

For these reasons, ATR, OCC, and Digital Liberty urge the FTC to leave the 2015 bipartisan statement of principles in place. 

You can read the full letter here or below. 

The Honorable Lina Khan
Chair, Federal Trade Commission
600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20580

Re: Comment on the Federal Trade Commission’s Possible Revocation of the “Statement of Enforcement Principles Regarding ‘Unfair Methods of Competition’ Under Section 5 of the FTC Act”

Dear Chair Khan,

We write to express concern over the Federal Trade Commission’s vote to revoke the “Statement of Enforcement Principles Regarding ‘Unfair Methods of Competition’ Under Section 5 of the FTC Act” at the July 1, 2021 Open Commission Meeting. If the Commission rescinds this bipartisan agreement, it would be a significant blow to consumer welfare and will hinder our economic growth as we recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act outlaws “unfair methods of competition or in commerce.” Section 5 does not list specific business practices that qualify as unfair methods of competition (UMC), instead leaving that determination to the FTC to evaluate on a case-by-case basis.

The Statement of Enforcement Principles is designed to limit the FTC’s “standalone” UMC authority when addressing anticompetitive conduct outside of the scope of the Sherman or Clayton Acts. The agreement was approved by the FTC in 2015 in a 4-1 vote, with all three Democratic commissioners voting in support.

The agreement articulated the limits on the FTC’s UMC authority in three ways.

First, the agreement emphasized the agency’s commitment to prioritizing consumer welfare when applying antitrust law. The long-held consumer welfare standard has anchored antitrust law for over four decades. Under the standard, enforcement action is only taken if consumers are being harmed through tangible effects like higher prices, decreased quality, or lack of choice. The consumer welfare standard prevents judges and regulators from using antitrust law as a vehicle to advance unrelated social priorities.

Second, the statement said that Section 5 enforcement should target “harm to competition or the competitive process,” but must consider whether there is a procompetitive justification for the conduct in question and whether it results in a countervailing benefit to consumers or competition. This is a key element of antitrust law under the consumer welfare standard, which protects the competitive process and consumers instead of protecting individual competitors in a marketplace. Robust competition among companies delivers better prices and better choices for all Americans.

Third, the agreement states that the FTC would be less likely to challenge business conduct as an unfair method of competition if “…enforcement of the Sherman or Clayton Act is sufficient to address the competitive harm arising from the act or practice.” This is an important limit that ensures that the FTC exercises its standalone UMC authority only when business conduct violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the Sherman or Clayton Acts.

Rescinding this bipartisan agreement would send two troubling signals. First, that the FTC is moving towards a European-style antitrust approach that props up inefficient competitors and disregards consumer harm. Second, that the FTC is actively working to shed all limits on its authority when it comes to antitrust enforcement.

Taken together, these changes will hamper economic growth as we attempt to rebound from the pandemic. Companies fearful of predatory antitrust litigation would pull their punches when competing with rivals, reducing choice and access to goods and services for shoppers across the country. Bureaucrats would win, American shoppers would lose.

For these reasons, we urge the FTC to leave the 2015 Statement of Section 5 Enforcement Principles in place.

Sincerely,

Grover Norquist
President, Americans for Tax Reform

Tom Hebert
Executive Director, Open Competition Center

Katie McAuliffe
Executive Director, Digital Liberty