John Peterson, head of the unit responsible for the design of the global anti-base erosion rules at the OECD, oversees the work on pillar two and its model rules.
Pillar two may have never been more than an abstract idea without Peterson’s work on the details. His team at the OECD co-released a model framework for the rules in December 2021 to pave the way for countries to draft legislation for pillar two throughout 2022 and 2023.
In 2022, Peterson has been working on reducing overall complexity in pillar two’s model rules after facing some criticism from business groups, including the US Council for International Business and the Business Industry Advisory Committee.
Nevertheless, the world is much closer to a global minimum corporate tax rate than it has ever been. Many governments may choose to improvise the OECD model rules, but Peterson’s design has laid out the fundamentals of the GloBE rules.
The EU and the US are implementing pillar two and many more governments look set to follow their example in 2023. Peterson’s work on the model rules will be the starting point whether governments interpret them in the same way or not.
