WASHINGTON — The world's biggest carbon polluting nations should jointly agree to tax emissions at $75 per ton in the next decade to keep climate change at safe levels, the International Monetary Fund said Thursday.
The global crisis lender's call for immediate action confronts a policy dilemma that has left major economies rife with discord in recent years as they battle to prevent catastrophic warming of the planet.
"Carbon taxes are the most powerful and efficient tools but only if they are implemented in a fair and growth-friendly way," IMF researchers said in a blog post.
After violent protests last year, France suspended plans to raise carbon taxes beyond $50 per ton. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump has moved to withdraw the United States from the 2015 Paris Agreement and some American lawmakers have advanced a "Green New Deal" to invest in de-carbonizing the economy.
The report was released ahead of next week's annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank at which newly installed IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva is expected to urge member countries to action.
A COMMON APPROACH
Taxing emissions -- raising the cost of carbon-intensive energy for electricity, travel, manufacturing, shipping and food -- is the most efficient way to prevent global average temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, the goal set in the Paris accord, according to the IMF research published Thursday.
While the current global average cost is $2 per ton, a coordinated increase to $75 by 2030 among the largest emitters in the Group of 20 economies would be the most likely to succeed.
A common approach would prevent "free-rider" countries from benefiting from reforms made by other nations and allow industries within countries to remain competitive with those in other nations, the report said.
But IMF researchers acknowledge the daunting and unequal costs this could impose.
Coal prices would more than triple. Electricity would shoot up by more than 30 percent in Canada and by between 70 and 90 percent in Australia. Gasoline prices would rise by between five and 15 percent in most countries, according to the report.
But environmental benefits would more than offset such costs -- by 2030, a $75 per ton tax would prevent an estimated 725,000 premature air pollution deaths, mainly in China, according to the report.
And consumers and firms eager to keep costs will have an immediate incentive to avoid emissions and invest in cleaner energy.
Tax revenues could be used to make such changes politically acceptable: targeted assistance to poor and vulnerable households, displaced workers and regions hit disproportionately by the transition.
Offsetting cuts to payroll and income taxes, combined with dividends to the public, could make the transition more politically palatable, the report said.
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PARIS - France's government unveiled a draft 2020 budget on Thursday with more than nine billion euros in tax cuts for households as it hopes to move on from on from roiling "yellow vest" protests while still cutting the deficit to within EU limits.
The "social crisis" brought on by the protests, as well as a slowdown in global economic growth, "led us to make decisions that encourage investment and consumption", Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire said as he unveiled the draft 2020 budget.
The draft budget, which will be officially presented to the cabinet on Friday, will cut taxes for households by 9.3 billion euros ($10 billion) and businesses by more than one billion euros.
That includes five billion euros in tax cuts for some 12 million households already promised by President Emmanuel Macron, the result of a "great national debate" he held to try to address the ongoing protests.
Macron, who swept to the presidency in 2017 with a pledge to get the country back on a solid financial footing, was caught short by the "yellow vest" movement which accused the former investment banker of ignoring the day-to-day struggles of many French.
After months of street protests that often spiraled into rioting and battles with police, Macron unveiled tax cuts, wage increases and other measures for low-income households.
The measures are expected to push this year's deficit to 3.1 percent of gross domestic product, making France the only eurozone member to exceed the bloc's three percent limit -- even as countries like Germany, the Netherlands and Portugal are likely to post surpluses.
The government forecast next year's deficit ratio falling to 2.2 percent, still short of the previous goal of two percent.
And France's debt mountain will barely budge next year from 98.7 percent of GDP -- far above the 60 percent or less demanded of eurozone members.
The money for the yellow vests -- who are also demanding improved public services -- also makes it unlikely Macron will honour his campaign pledge of balancing the government's books in 2022.
"The government abandoned its strategy of reducing France's structural deficit in the aftermath of the yellow vests," Charles de Courson, an independent lawmaker respected on both the right and left for his public finance acumen, told AFP.
Nevertheless, the fiscal relief has helped sustain French growth, expected to reach 1.4 percent this year even as EU economic powerhouse Germany risks falling into recession. However the government revised its growth forecast for next year down to 1.3 percent.
GERMANY URGED TO INVEST
Le Maire called on Germany to invest to prevent the flagging eurozone economy from getting worse.
"Germany must invest and invest now, the sooner the better," he said.
"Do not wait for the economic situation to worsen to make the necessary decisions."
He also defended European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi, who has come under heavy criticism in some circles, including Germany, for unleashing a huge stimulus package aimed at propping up the eurozone economy.
"We support the courageous decision made by the ECB and its president," he said.
Budget Minister Gerald Darmanin said this week that the creation of a pay-as-you-go income tax system, which did away with self-reporting months after the fiscal year-end, had brought a 2-billion-euro windfall to state coffers.
The government has already indicated that defense and security spending will increase next year, offset by cuts at the finance and budget ministries, and reduced funds for local authorities.
Yet Macron has abandoned his pledge of slashing 50,000 central government jobs during his five-year term, saying that only 10,500 would be now be cut.
"France has chosen the right economic policies, even if it was forced to do so" because of the yellow vest revolt, said Philippe Waechter, chief economist at Ostrum Asset Management in Paris.
"We have a European economy that's slowing quite rapidly, and you're not going to reverse this by cutting back even more," he told AFP.
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PARIS - US internet giant Google has agreed a settlement totaling 945 million euros ($1.0 billion) to end a tax dispute in France under an agreement announced in court on Thursday.
The company will pay a 500-million-euro fine for tax evasion, as well as a further 465 million euros to settle claims with French tax authorities.
In a statement, Google confirmed the settlement and hailed the fact it had put an end to fiscal differences that it had had with France for numerous years.
The settlement follows similar out-of-court agreements reached in Italy and Britain by Google in recent years, though the French agreement is much larger than the previous ones.
Google said it now wanted to see a coordinated reform for a clear international taxation framework.
French Justice Minister Nicole Galoubet and Budget Minister Gerald Darmanin welcomed the "definitive settling" of all the contentious issues, adding in a statement that it was the result of two years of intense work by the French authorities.
"This outcome is good news for the public finances and fiscal fairness in France," their statement said.
Belloubet said the settlement showed that the French authorities have the tools to ensure an equitable tax system.
"It is a historic settlement both for our public finances and because it marks the end of an era," Darmanin said. "By normalizing Google's situation in France, (the settlement) responds to our citizens' demands for fiscal fairness," he said.
G7 DEAL?
The settlement comes as France and its European allies seek to find common ground with the United States in a long-running dispute over the taxation of digital giants.
Google, like several other big American tech companies, has its European headquarters in Ireland, where the government has set the corporate tax rate at just 12.5 percent in a bid to attract big companies.
But leading EU states like France argue that this is allowing tech giants to avoid paying sufficient taxes on the huge profits and sales they accrue in big countries outside where the tech giants are headquartered.
The French parliament in July passed a law taxing digital giants on their French operations, drawing an angry response from US President Donald Trump and threats of retaliation.
The British government is now planning a similar move, at a time when it also hopes to build on its relationship with Washington as it exits the European Union.
But French President Emmanuel Macron said alongside Trump at the G7 summit in August that leaders had reached an agreement on the taxation of tech giants, though the precise details remain to be worked out.
Macron has said it will scrap its digital tax once a new international levy being discussed among the 134 OECD countries is in place, which Paris hopes will happen next year.
Pascal Saint-Amans, who is leading the negotiations as head of tax policy at the OECD, said after the G7 that progress is being made but several key issues still need to be hammered out.
The Google investigation in France was first opened by anti-fraud prosecutors in 2015 and was followed by searches at its Paris headquarters in 2016, an operation codenamed "Tulip" that mobilized a hundred police and experts.
In 2016, Google paid £130 million ($160,000) in a settlement with the British authorities and in 2017 agreed to pay 306 million euros to settle a tax dispute in Italy.
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French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday G7 members had reached an agreement on the taxation of tech giants, a long-standing subject of friction between France and the US which has threatened to retaliate with tariffs on French wines.
Speaking alongside US President Donald Trump at a G7 summit in southwest France, Macron admitted that there had been "a lot of nervousness" about France's new tax on tech behemoths such as Google and Facebook.
But negotiations between France and the United States had produced "what I think is a very good deal," he said.
Macron explained that France would scrap its own digital tax once a new international levy being discussed among 134 OECD countries is in place. France hopes it will be ready in 2020.
Asked whether he would now rescind his threat to slap punitive retaliatory tariffs on French wines, Trump, who had described the French tax as "very unfair", was non-committal.
His wife Melania "loves the French wine", he joked.
The US leader, who was elected on a protectionist platform, had earlier announced that Paris and Washington were "close" to a deal.
"They want to make a deal and we'll see if we can make a deal," Trump said.
REIMBURSE EXCESS TAX
The French parliament passed its new levy in July amid frustration at the slow pace of negotiations on a new global accord to ensure tech multinationals pay a larger share of taxes on their operations.
Under EU law, American tax giants can declare their profits from across the bloc in a single jurisdiction -- in most cases low-tax jurisdictions such as Ireland or the Netherlands.
The French tax, which targets local sales rather than profits, has drawn accusations of discrimination from the so-called GAFA companies (Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon).
It is expected to add 400 million euros ($444 million) to France's coffers this year, rising to 450 million in 2020.
Under the agreement struck in Biarritz, French tax authorities will look at how much companies paid in French "GAFA" taxes and how much they would have paid under the yet-to-be-decided international formula, French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire told AFP.
"Everything that is paid in excess compared to the international solution will be credited to the company," he added.
Britain has also announced plans for a tax on tech giants, accused of exploiting fiscal rules to sharply cut their tax bills despite soaring profits.
"Frankly, we must do something to tax fairly and properly the online businesses that have such colossal sales in our country," British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said ahead of talks with Trump in Biarritz on Saturday.
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AKRON, Ohio — Colin Robertson wonders why he pays federal taxes on the $18,000 a year he makes cleaning carpets, while the tech giant Amazon got a tax rebate.
His concerns about a tilted economic playing field recently led Robertson to join the Akron chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. At a gathering this month, as members discussed Karl Marx and corporate greed over chocolate chip cookies, it was not long before talk turned to income inequality and how the government helps the wealthy avoid taxes.
“One of the benefits of taxation is taking it and using it for the collective good,” said Robertson, 25, comparing his minimal income to the roughly $150 billion net worth of Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive and the world’s richest person.
“He could be taxed at 99.9 percent and still have millions left over,” Robertson said, “and I’d be homeless.”
It is a topic that several presidential candidates, led by Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, have hammered recently as they travel the campaign trail, spurred by a report that 60 Fortune 500 companies paid no federal taxes on $79 billion in corporate income last year. Amazon, which is reported to be opening a center in an abandoned Akron mall that will employ 500 people, has become the poster child for corporate tax avoidance; last year it had an effective tax rate of below zero — receiving a rebate — on income of $10.8 billion.
For decades, profitable companies have been able to avoid corporate taxes. But the list of those paying zero roughly doubled last year as a result of provisions in President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax bill that expanded corporate tax breaks and reduced the tax rate on corporate income.
“Amazon, Netflix and dozens of major corporations, as a result of Trump’s tax bill, pay nothing in federal taxes,” Sanders said last week during a Fox News town-hall-style event. “I think that’s a disgrace.”
Corporations’ ability to whittle down their tax bills has long been a target of criticism by Democrats, and this presidential campaign is no exception, particularly among left-wing candidates who argue that corporations should be accountable for wage inequality and its impact on low- and middle-income workers.
Here in Ohio, even though unemployment has hit an 18-year low, several counties still have jobless rates significantly higher than the national rate, 3.8 percent, and the statewide rate, 4.4 percent. Ohioans have witnessed so many factory closures over the years that they seem to live with a permanent sense of economic wariness. The question for Democrats is how to leverage that to their advantage as they try to retake the state, which Trump won by 8 percentage points in 2016.
David Betras, the Democratic chairman in Mahoning County, a traditionally blue stronghold of union voters that Trump nearly carried in 2016, said that Democrats had not yet figured out how to use the economic angst of laid-off employees and minimum-wage workers to defeat Trump in Ohio in 2020.
“Believe it or not, if you listen to the president, he addresses that issue,” Betras said. “He does it with a lot of smoke and very many mirrors, but he’s at least talking about how good the economy is and what I’ve done for you. ‘I’m with you. I have your back.’”
Even as candidates focus on corporate taxation, Betras said the issue didn’t resonate with voters in the same way as more familiar topics like health care or immigration. “It appeals to a small slice of the electorate,” he said. (Betras, a lawyer, has endorsed Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio for the Democratic nomination.)
A Gallup poll last fall suggested that taxes were generally a more important issue for Republicans than for Democrats.
In an election in which Democrats will seek to win back voters who supported President Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, then switched to Trump, some Democrats also worry that calls to increase corporate taxes might actually turn off swing voters in this critical state, those like Thomas Chhay, a student at the University of Akron.
“I lean Republican,” Chhay, 18, said last week while having lunch at the university’s student union. “I agree with corporate tax cuts unless the companies ship the jobs overseas.”
The list of profitable companies that pay no corporate taxes, compiled by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning think tank, also includes Goodyear and three other Ohio companies, including the Akron-based electric utility FirstEnergy.
The company, which has the naming rights to the Cleveland Browns’ stadium, paid no taxes last year on $1.5 billion in income, according to the analysis, and will receive additional tax credits that can be used in the future. In a win for consumers, some of that will be returned to the utility’s customers.
Several of the Democratic candidates have called for changes to the corporate system and Warren has gone the furthest in issuing a detailed plan to alter the corporate system. Under her proposal, corporations would pay a new 7% tax on every dollar over $100 million in profits they earn anywhere in the world. She estimated the new tax would apply to roughly 1,200 companies and bring in $1 trillion.
Under Warren’s plan, Amazon would have paid $698 million instead of $0 in federal taxes for 2018. In a statement, the company said it “pays all the taxes we are required to pay in the US and every country where we operate.”
Sanders, in his 2016 presidential campaign and in this one, has routinely talked about closing loopholes and capturing some of the billions in profits that multinationals have kept overseas in tax havens and out of the Internal Revenue Service’s reach.
Amy Klobuchar, the Minnesota senator who is also running, has taken a different approach. She has tied a proposed increase in the corporate tax rate, to 25 percent from the current 21 percent, to plans to rebuild bridges, roads and airports nationwide. About $400 billion of her trillion-dollar infrastructure plan would be financed by the tax increase.
Former Vice President Joe Biden, who officially entered the race on Thursday, has not issued a formal proposal on corporate taxes. In remarks last May, however, he blamed a “yawning” income gap for tearing the country apart. “We have to deal with this tax code,” he said. “It’s wildly skewed toward taking care of those at the very top. It overwhelmingly favors investors over workers.”
In surveys, more Americans support raising the corporate tax rate than lowering it or leaving it unchanged. And several Democratic candidates, like the former housing secretary Julián Castro, invoke “fair share” rhetoric in speeches or vow to undo the recent Republican tax law. Others, like Sen. Kamala Harris of California, have focused more on the individual income tax and reducing the burden on working families.
But raising the headline tax rate on corporations will not eliminate the corporate zero-rate club, which also results from companies taking advantage of loopholes and the way global profits are taxed.
Two years ago, Trump appeared at a sold-out rally in working-class Youngstown, the seat of Mahoning County, and delivered a message full of economic reassurance.
“I was looking at some of those big, once incredible job-producing factories,” the president said. “Those jobs have left Ohio. They’re all coming back. They’re all coming back. Don’t move. Don’t sell your house.”
But it has not entirely worked out that way.
General Motors, one of the companies on the zero-tax list, recently idled a large plant near Youngstown that produced the Chevrolet Cruze, a decision that helped increase the company’s stock price even as GM paid no federal taxes on $4.32 billion in income.
“What was promised to these people was more jobs,” said David Green, president of United Auto Workers Local 1112, which represents workers at the plant, which is in Lordstown. “When you give them the tax break and they take the jobs away, that’s like a double whammy. That’s a lose, lose.”
Lordstown is in Trumbull County, where the unemployment rate was 6.6 percent in March and many of those who work are eligible for public assistance. “Working people can get free cheese? The system is broken,” Green said.
Notwithstanding Trump’s entreaty two years ago that local workers stay put, Tyler Savin, a real estate agent, said the idling of the plant had added to his home listings and that many sellers would not get their asking prices as they leave Ohio for other GM locations.
Savin, 22, was among the customers last week at Tommy Dogg’s Bar and Grill in nearby Niles, the birthplace of both Ryan, the local favorite-son candidate, and William McKinley, a Republican president who was known for imposing tariffs on foreign goods.
Savin likes Sanders, Biden and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas, but will ultimately vote for whoever the Democratic nominee is, he said in a whisper lest pro-Trump patrons overhear.
“I think corporations should pay their taxes, like Amazon,” he said. But he said health care and support for abortion rights were more important to him.
Jeff Williams, 57, who manages a convenience store on the midnight shift, had heard about Amazon’s tax breaks on the radio. Last week, as he sat outside his home in Niles catching the first warm rays of the year, he also was doing some comparison.
He was treated for cancer, heart disease and two hernias last year but was not able to deduct his expenses, he said. Amazon, meantime, availed itself of a full suite of tax breaks. “Amazon doesn’t pay taxes, but I pay taxes,” Williams said.
Akron, about an hour west, is faring better economically. Mayor Daniel Horrigan will not confirm or deny it, but Amazon is believed to be the company he has recruited to move into Akron’s Rolling Acres Mall, a once-thriving shopping center that closed in 2008, becoming a symbol of both the recession and the retail disruption caused by online shopping.
Amazon would not comment on whether it planned to open a facility there.
Horrigan has been working to invigorate the economy of Akron, historically known as the Rubber City for its role in tire manufacturing. The tire jobs have mostly moved elsewhere.
Goodyear, which made the list of 60 by paying no federal corporate income taxes, employs 64,000 people worldwide, but only 3,000 of them remain in Akron, mostly in the company’s headquarters. A spokesman said the company’s 2018 tax situation stemmed from “historical losses in U.S. operations.”
The Democratic Socialists have close to 100 members in Akron, many of them supporters of Sanders. Those attending last week’s meeting ranged from a stay-at-home mother who said she had not been able to pay her water bill for a year to a college professor, David Pereplyotchik.
Pereplyotchik, 37, said he believed the group should come up with a viable alternative to the corporate tax and wage system in the United States.
“If we’re fighting for something, what version of the thing are we fighting for?” asked Pereplyotchik, who teaches philosophy. “It seems like if you just make them pay employees more, they’re just not going to hire employees.”
Robertson, the carpet cleaner, has his own idea: nationalizing the companies. “I think forcing them to pay higher alone is inefficient,” he said, “and taxation alone is inefficient.”
2019 New York Times News Service
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WASHINGTON -- The White House has refused to meet a Tuesday deadline to deliver 6 years of President Donald Trump's tax returns to Congress, escalating a battle that is expected to head to court.
The House Ways and Means Committee's chairman, Richard Neal, had given the Internal Revenue Service until April 10 to turn over the president's personal tax returns, and those of several entities connected to Trump, for 2013 through 2018.
That deadline was extended to April 23. But Trump has signaled he does not want his financial information disclosed, repeating his oft-used excuse during the 2016 presidential campaign that he would not release his tax returns while under audit by the IRS.
Trump broke with a long-established norm during the 2016 elections by refusing to release the returns as most presidents have done since the 1970s even though it is not required by law.
"The president is pretty clear: Once he's out of audit, he will think about doing it," White House Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley told Fox News on Tuesday.
"He's not inclined to do so at this time."
The US Treasury Department said it was reviewing Neal's request and consulting with the Justice Department, and that there were "serious constitutional questions" related to the request.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, in a letter to Neal, said the department would render a final decision by May 6 on whether or not to comply.
But Mnuchin also warned that congressional Democrats, through the Ways and Means demand, were seeking "to obtain and expose the president's tax returns."
Democrats have warned that legal action, such as a subpoena of financial data, could follow if the Trump administration does not comply, precipitating a lengthy battle in the courts.
In requesting the tax returns, Democrats have cited a little-known law that allows Congress to review anyone's returns to conduct an investigation.
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WASHINGTON -- Taxpayers in the US state of Louisiana got an unexpected windfall when a computer error issued their tax refunds a second time, local media reported on Saturday.
The state's Department of Revenue cautioned recipients of the wrongly-paid windfall: "Do not spend it." If they have, they must pay the money back in 30 days.
"An error in an electronic payment system caused 66,780 state individual income tax refunds issued on Tuesday, March 12 to be issued a second time on Wednesday, March 13," the department said on its website.
The duplicate refunds totaled more than $26 million, it said, adding that the state is working with financial institutions to recover the overpayments directly from recipients' bank accounts.
New procedures were put in place to prevent the error from happening again, the department said.
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NEW YORK -- Long out of favor in the United States, the idea of taxing rich individuals and corporations to pay for healthcare or to combat inequality is gaining ground among Democratic politicians.
While the United States reveres free enterprise and is home to the world's largest number of billionaires, such tax proposals have been gaining traction in political circles in recent weeks.
More than one Democratic contender in next year's presidential elections are campaigning on some plan to tax the wealthy.
And they have been encouraged by famous billionaires such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, the world's second and third wealthiest people, who worry about America's severe wealth inequality.
Vermont's left-leaning Senator Bernie Sanders was among the first in the recent wave. During his 2016 presidential campaign he called for higher federal income taxes to pay for free college tuition and universal healthcare.
Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren has proposed a two-percent wealth tax starting at $50 million in earnings. New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is calling for a levy on financial transactions, and Sanders says inheritances should be taxed up to 77 percent.
With the Democrats now in control of the House of Representatives, the undisputed media star of the freshman class, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is leading the charge: she has proposed a tax of 70 percent on any income over $10 million to help pay for a proposed "Green New Deal" to de-carbonize the US economy and help prevent catastrophic climate change, while offering universal healthcare and guaranteed employment.
This so-called marginal rate of 70 percent is not unprecedented in the United States, but was last at that level 1981. The current top marginal tax rate is 37 percent.
Raising corporate taxes is another Democratic priority, a subject inflamed by the recent controversy over Amazon, which has reported no federal income tax expenses for the past two years. That has stoked debate over highly profitable companies that do not pay into government coffers.
Some Republicans have pushed back, with outspoken and media savvy Ocasio-Cortez drawing the most fire.
Grover Norquist, an anti-tax activist who has long pushed Republican lawmakers to pledge never to raise taxes, warned in January against soaking the rich, saying such taxes "always slip down to hit the rest of us."
But Joseph Thorndike, a historian specializing in US tax policy, said a reversal of the post-war trend of cutting taxes is within sight.
'SOCIAL TENSIONS'
"Something is happening here," he said. "We are beginning to have a discussion about that that we haven't had since the 1960s or even the 50s."
Top marginal tax rates in the United States were very high following World War II, maxing out at 94 percent. They began to fall in the 1960s and were slashed again under President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.
In late 2017, Donald Trump and the Republican majority in Congress cut corporate and personal income tax rates, despite unanimous Democratic opposition which denounced the tax overhaul as a giveaway to the rich.
Trump, himself a billionaire, has attracted widespread scorn for refusing to disclose his own income tax returns, and accusations that his family maintained its wealth by evading taxes, an accusation he denies.
Why has the debate changed?
Yawning income gaps are one reason, Thorndike said.
"People are willing to tolerate rich people getting richer as long as middle class people are also doing better," he said. "When the middle and laboring class is stagnating, that creates social tensions."
Trump himself may have been catalyst.
While most major changes in US tax policy came in times of crisis -- wars or deep recessions -- Trump's unconventional presidency could mark "a sharp enough break" to bring about change, Thorndike said.
A Morning Consult poll conducted late last month for Politico found 74 percent of voters were generally in favor of higher taxes for the rich, while 73 percent favored this for corporations.
Furthermore, 90 percent believed such tax revenues should go to pay for healthcare or infrastructure.
But this apparent consensus masks significant divergences between Democrats and Republicans, and the tax issue remains very sensitive, analysts say.
The modest changes are sometimes a hard sell for the public while the "anti-rich" rhetoric of some Democrats could alienate certain voters, Thorndike said.
But Kenneth Scheve, professor of political science at Stanford University, said "there is a set of voters and politicians who are trying to innovate and respond in ways the country has not traditionally responded to."
"For the Democratic primaries in 2020, this is going to be a key feature of the debate," he said.
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PARIS - About a hundred activists occupied an Apple store in the French capital Saturday, demanding that the US technology giant pay billions of euros the EU says it owes in back taxes.
The members from Attac, a group that seeks alternatives to unbridled globalization, invaded the expansive two-level store near the Paris Opera for several hours -- leaving only after they were assured of a meeting with management.
"One hundred Attac activists occupied the Apple store" to demand the company "pay its fair share of taxes in the country in which it really operates," spokeswoman Aurelie Trouve said.
Members standing on the second-level balcony held a banner reading "We will stop when Apple pays", while others held signs that read "Pay your taxes".
"We received a formal commitment from an Apple manager that we would be granted a meeting with national leadership within 15 days," Trouve told AFP.
"If this meeting does not take place, we will come back before Christmas".
The group held about 30 demonstrations across France on Saturday, including at an Apple store in the southern city of Marseille.
Apple France was not immediately available for comment.
In August 2016, European authorities estimated that the company behind the iPhone owed $14.5 billion in back taxes after it negotiated highly favorable tax arrangements with the Irish government.
Revelations last month from the "Paradise Papers" shed light on Apple's tax avoidance strategy, which shifted tens of billion of dollars in profits from one fiscal haven to another.
The report -- from a trove of documents released by the US-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) -- said Apple transferred funds to the small island of Jersey, which typically does not tax corporate income and is largely exempt from European Union tax regulations.
Apple has said it follows the law in each country it operates.
Attac also protested against the company last month on the day Apple released its iPhone X globally, dumping a load of freshly picked apples as demonstrators carried signs saying "Apple, pay your taxes" in the southern city of Aix-en-Provence.
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MANILA - The Philippines and Mexico have inked several bilateral agreements, including the avoidance of double taxation.
The agreements were signed during Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto's state visit Tuesday.
In his remarks during a joint press conference with President Aquino at Malacanang Palace, Nieto said,"Today, we have undersigned several agreements in the area of the economy. We have undersigned an agreement to avoid double taxation and, by this, enable trade and financial activities between our countries. In the area of tourism, we will consolidate more cooperation in areas like R&D, education, training, and also in trade promotion and investment. In the area of security, we will exchange best practices and will share information to jointly fight the scourge of drug dealing."
Aside from this, Nieto said both sides agreed to accelerate the conclusion of three initiatives: the air services agreement that dates back to 1952; the reciprocal, the promotion and protection of investments,and the creation of a joint economic committee.
"This way, we will create the Mexico and the Philippines Action Plan and that would be the roadmap to strengthen our relationship. With this new institutional scaffolding, we will find new collaboration and exchange opportunities. The Philippines and Mexico are both stable, strong and dynamic nations with solid economies and a great potential for the future."
For his part, President Aquino said, "Today, President Peña Nieto and I welcomed the signing of agreements on Avoidance of Double Taxation, on Tourism Cooperation, and on Anti-Narcotics Cooperation. We also took the opportunity to welcome two business agreements, which both our nations signed earlier this year."
He also congratulated Nieto for Mexico’s chairmanship of the Open Government Partnership, "an endeavor the Philippines is proud of, as both a founding partner and as an advocate for transparency and openness in governance through the use of new technologies that enable our respective citizens to better engage in the process of nation-building," Aquino said.
Nieto is on a state visit to the Philippines and was accorded honors for a state visit. He was feted in a state dinner with entertainment provided by local music artists led by Pops Fernandez and Jet Pangan.
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