By David Lawder
RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) – U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Friday that she opposes shifting the negotiations for a global tax deal to the United Nations from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, pushing back against the desires of some developing countries and non-profit groups.
Yellen told Reuters on the sidelines of a Group of 20 finance leaders’ meeting in Brazil that she believes the OECD, which has shepherded negotiations over a two-part corporate tax deal for the past three years, is better placed to handle such talks.
“We don’t want to see this shifted to the UN,” Yellen said in Rio de Janeiro. The OECD “is a consensus-based organization. We’ve made a huge amount of progress, and the UN doesn’t have the technical expertise to do this.”
Moving negotiations to the UN would bring many more countries into the process and its majority vote structure is not suited to complex tax negotiations where countries need to all agree on terms, Yellen said.
(Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Andrea Ricci)
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