A CUMBRIAN firm has spoken out on Rishi Sunak and his G7 counterparts' historic deal, to make large multinational companies pay more tax in the countries they operate in.

On Saturday (June 12), the G7 group agreed on a minimum corporation tax rate of 15%, but some countries would like this to be higher.

For example, in the UK, the current corporation tax rate is 19%, which will rise to 25% by 2023 as the government tries to cover pandemic spending.

Peter Ellwood, managing partner at robinson+co, said: “For many years, multinationals have moved their branches to countries with low corporate tax rates, and declared most of their profits in that country.

"This means they only pay the local rate of tax, even if the profits mainly come from revenue made elsewhere. This is legal and commonly done."

With offices across West Cumbria, Robinson+co works with a range of businesses from sole traders to large corporations, and therefore knows the importance of large companies paying their fair share of corporation tax.

Mr Ellwood continued: “The deal announced on Saturday, between the US, the UK, France, Germany, Canada, Italy and Japan, plus the EU, could see billions of pounds flow to governments to pay off debts which have been incurred during the Covid-19 pandemic.

"This announcement, which has been years in the making, will now put pressure on other countries to follow suit, including the G20 (which includes China, Russia and Brazil) which meets next month.

“In the past, many countries have thought that this agreement was unobtainable. However, [they] now need to cover the cost of the pandemic, and they see this as a good starting point.

"There is still a lot of work to be done, but the G7 has made a good start.”