The Impact of Profit Shifting on Economic Activity and Tax Competition

The Impact of Profit Shifting on Economic Activity and Tax Competition
Author: Mr.Alexander D Klemm
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 18
Release: 2019-12-20
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1513525069

A growing empirical literature has documented significant profit shifting activities by multinationals. This paper looks at the impact of such profit shifting on real activity and tax competition. Real activity can be affected as profit shifting changes—and theoretically most likely reduces—the cost of capital. Tax competition, even over real capital, is affected, because a permissive attitude toward profit shifting can be seen as a selective tax reduction for multinationals. Tightening profit shifting rules in turn can affect tax competition through the main rate. This paper discusses these issues theoretically and with the help of a simulation to assess the impact of profit-shifting on investment, revenues, and government behavior. Using the theoretical framework, it also provides a brief overview of the related empirical literature.

International Aspects of Fiscal Policies

International Aspects of Fiscal Policies
Author: Jacob A. Frenkel
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 422
Release: 2007-12-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0226262545

This volume brings together nine papers from a conference on international macroeconomics sponsored by the NBER in 1985. International economists as well as graduate students in the fields of global monetary economics, finance, and macroeconomics will find this an outstanding contribution to current research. It includes two commentaries for each paper, written by experts in the field, and Frenkel's detailed introduction, which serves as a reader's guide to the arguments made, the models employed, and the issues raised by each contributor. The studies analyze national fiscal policies within the context of the international economic order. Malcolm D. Knight and Paul R. Masson use an empirical model to show that fiscal changes in recent years in the United States, West Germany, and Japan have caused major disturbances in net savings and investment flows. Linda S. Kole uses a two-country simulation model to examine the effects of a large nation's expansion on exchange rates, interest rates, and the balance of payments. In other studies, Warwick J. McKibbin and Jeffrey D. Sachs discuss the influences of different currency regimes on the international transmission of inflation; Kent P. Kimbrough analyzes the interaction between optimal tax policies and international trade; Sweder van Wijnbergen investigates the interrelation of fiscal policies, trade intervention, and world interest rates; and Willem H. Buiter uses an analytical model to look at fiscal interdependence and optimal policy design. David Backus, Michael Devereux, and Douglas Purvis develop a theoretical model to investigate effects of different fiscal policies in an open economy. Alan C. Stockman looks at the influence of policy anticipation in the private sector, while Lawrence H. Summers shows the effects of differential tax policy on international competitiveness.

Business Taxes and International Competitiveness

Business Taxes and International Competitiveness
Author: Michael S. Knoll
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2008
Genre:
ISBN:

Around the world, policymakers are obsessed with the competitiveness of their domestic companies and domestically based multinational corporations (MNCs). Such concerns frequently influence policy, especially tax policy. In this paper, I develop a theory of how taxes affect the international competitiveness of businesses. I then use that theory to evaluate basic tax policy decisions, such as the choice between residence- and source-based taxation and the level of tax rates, and to understand the impact various provisions in the U.S. Internal Revenue Code are likely to have on the competitiveness of U.S.-based corporations and MNCs.

Taxation in the Global Economy

Taxation in the Global Economy
Author: Assaf Razin
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 456
Release: 2008-04-15
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0226705889

The increasing globalization of economic activity is bringing an awareness of the international consequences of tax policy. The move toward the common European market in 1992 raises the important question of how inefficiencies in the various tax systems—such as self-defeating tax competition among member nations—will be addressed. As barriers to trade and investment tumble, cross-national differences in tax structures may loom larger and create incentives for relocations of capital and labor; and efficient and equitable income tax systems are becoming more difficult to administer and enforce, particularly because of the growing importance of multinational enterprises. What will be the role of tax policy in this more integrated world economy? Assaf Razin and Joel Slemrod gathered experts from two traditionally distinct specialties, taxation and international economics, to lay the groundwork for understanding these issues, which will require the attention of scholars and policymakers for years to come. Contributors describe the basic provisions of the U.S. tax code with respect to international transactions, highlighting the changes contained in the U.S. Tax Reform Act of 1986; explore the ways that tax systems influence the decisions of multinationals; examine the effect of taxation on trade patterns and capital flows; and discuss the implications of the opening world economy for the design of optimal international tax policy. The papers will prove valuable not only to scholars and students, but to government economists and international tax lawyers as well.

Global Tax Revolution

Global Tax Revolution
Author: Chris R. Edwards
Publisher: Cato Institute
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2008
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1933995181

Introduction -- Capital explosion -- Tax cut revolution -- Flat tax club -- Mobile brains and mobile wealth -- Taxing businesses in the global economy -- The economics of tax competition -- The battle for freedom and competition -- The moral case for tax competition -- Options for U.S. policy.

International Corporate Tax Avoidance: A Review of the Channels, Magnitudes, and Blind Spots

International Corporate Tax Avoidance: A Review of the Channels, Magnitudes, and Blind Spots
Author: Sebastian Beer
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 45
Release: 2018-07-23
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 148436399X

This paper reviews the rapidly growing empirical literature on international tax avoidance by multinational corporations. It surveys evidence on main channels of corporate tax avoidance including transfer mispricing, international debt shifting, treaty shopping, tax deferral and corporate inversions. Moreover, it performs a meta analysis of the extensive literature that estimates the overall size of profit shifting. We find that the literature suggests that, on average, a 1 percentage-point lower corporate tax rate will expand before-tax income by 1 percent—an effect that is larger than reported as the consensus estimate in previous surveys and tends to be increasing over time. The literature on tax avoidance still has several unresolved puzzles and blind spots that require further research.