Trump threatens to double tax rates for foreign companies

U.S. President Donald Trump has instructed the Secretary of the Treasury to investigate whether any foreign company, or individual, should face higher taxes because American corporations or citizens are being unfairly taxed overseas. Under Section 891 of the U.S. tax code, the president has the power to double the rate of tax on foreign nationals and corporations if they judge that the countries they hail from are unfairly taxing American interests overseas. Trump also withdrew support for last year’s OECD global tax pact, which allows other countries to levy top-up taxes on U.S. multinationals. Grant Wardell-Johnson, global head of tax policy at KPMG, said: “Ultimately we are seeing international taxation moving from a multilateral domain to a bilateral one based on strong unilateral assertions. It is a new taxation world.”