The writer is a professor of economics and finance at Columbia University and previously chaired the US Council of Economic Advisers

From the Biden administration’s inception, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has championed a global minimum tax for corporations. While the US walked back from a request for a 21 per cent rate (which was linked to an objective of raising the current US corporate tax of 21 per cent to between 25 and 28 per cent), it did lock in with G7 finance ministers a rate of at least 15 per cent. Secretary Yellen praised the move: “That global minimum tax would end the race to the bottom in corporate taxation, and ensure fairness for the middle class and working people in the US and around the world.”

It is tough to argue that corporate income shouldn’t pay its “fair share”. But the global minimum tax raises both political and economic questions.