The world’s most powerful countries could strike a landmark deal on corporation tax which may put pressure on the Government to address the low rate it charges multinational companies.

At a G7 Summit in London, attended by Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe, a deal to force wealthy companies to pay more tax was close to being agreed last night.

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said the Group of Seven were in touching distance of an agreement after the first day of meeting’s yesterday.

“We are just one millimetre away from a historic agreement,” Mr Le Maire told the BBC after leaving the talks.

But major disagreements remain among G7 nations on both the minimum rate at which companies should be taxed, and on how the rules will be drawn up to ensure that very large companies with lower profit margins, such as Amazon, face higher taxes.

The United States has proposed a minimum corporation tax rate of 15pc, above the level in countries such as Ireland but well below the average in the G7.

Mr Le Maire said this represented “only a starting point”.

“We need something that is credible,” he added.

“We are still working on this very tricky point of the rate.”

British finance minister Rishi Sunak is hosting the meeting, and told ministers that the rest of the world was watching.

“We cannot continue to rely on a tax system that was largely designed in the 1920s,” he said.

Any deal would still need much wider global buy-in at a meeting of the G20 in Venice in July.

Mr Donohoe attended in his capacity as President of the Eurogroup and made a number of contributions during a day of talks which also focused on issues related to the Covid-19 pandemic and climate change.

Ahead of the meeting, Mr Donohoe said: “There is now clear light at the end of the tunnel with the accelerating vaccination roll-out, falling infections and pressure on intensive care services gradually coming down.

“This year the euro area economy will rebound strongly. Our economic policies have been instrumental in facilitating this recovery and in shielding our citizens over the past year, maintaining jobs and putting our economies in a position to recover strongly.”

Mr Donohoe will not be a signatory to any agreement on taxation after tomorrow’s meetings, but he is expected to issue a statement.

Mr Le Maire said a deal would send an important signal that the G7 – consisting of the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada – could still be influential.

On Monday, Japan’s finance minister Taro Aso said he did not expect agreement this week on a specific minimum tax rate.

The US Treasury expects a fuller agreement to come when US president Joe Biden and other heads of government meet at a secluded beach resort in southwest England on June 11-13.

While the US has proposed a minimum global corporate tax rate of at least 15pc, Mr Biden had been planning to raise the US domestic corporate tax headline rate to as high as 28pc.

But on Thursday he offered to keep the rate unchanged at 21pc but proposed a 15pc tax floor after deductions and credits in a bid to gain support from Republicans for new spending measures.