Some Equity and Efficiency Considerations of International Tax Competition

The paper uses a dynamic 2-country equilibrium model with imperfections in the labour market calibrated for the US and EU economy to investigate dynamic efficiency and equity aspects of international tax competition. We focus on tax policy where governments can only decide on the levels of corporate and labour taxes, given a constant share of government consumption and transfers in GDP and a constant VAT rate. We find that the welfare effect of a tax shift from capital to labour depends heavily on the distortionary nature of labour taxes. In contrast to existing results we find substantial positive international spillover effects of corporate tax reduction in one country, with long term gains outweighing short term losses. Results are very different, however, if one goes beyond the representative agent framework. According to our results, a tax switch is most likely not Pareto improving since net wages tend to decline in both regions even in the long run.     

Tax Coordination and Unemployment

This paper analyses the implications of unemployment for fiscal competition and tax coordination among small open economies. Unemployment is modeled as resulting from wage bargaining. The analysis focuses on the effect of labour and capital tax coordination on welfare. We show that, while coordinated capital and labour tax increases unambiguously raise welfare if labour markets are competitive, different results emerge if labour markets are unionised. It turns out that coordinated capital and labour tax increases may reduce welfare. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Tax coordination with different preferences for public goods: Conflict or harmony of interest?

The paper analyzes strategic commodity taxation in a model with trade in a single private good that is simultaneously imported by consumers of a high-tax country and exported by its producers. Conditions for the existence of a Nash equilibrium are given, and an asymmetry is introduced through different preferences for public goods. Two tax coordination measures are discussed—a minimum tax rate and a coordinated increase in the costs of cross-border shopping. It is shown that tax coordination generally benefits the high-tax country while the low-tax country will gain only if the intensity of tax competition is high in the initial equilibrium or if governments are pricesensitive toward the effective marginal costs of public good supply.     

Company Tax Reform in the European Union

The European Commission recently proposed to move towards a consolidated tax base for European multinational companies, to be allocated across EU member states through a system of formula apportionment. This paper argues that while the Commission's blueprints for company tax reform may reduce existing problems of transfer pricing, they will also create new distortions as long as existing tax rate differentials are maintained. The paper also investigates the changes in international tax spillovers which will occur as a result of a switch from the current system of separate accounting to formula apportionment. The final part of the paper discusses whether more conventional corporate tax harmonization should still be a long term policy goal for the EU and presents quantitative estimates of the efficiency gains from harmonization.     

Interjurisdictional Tax Competition in a Federal System of Overlapping Revenue Maximizing Governments

Academic literature in public finance has focused on interjurisdictional tax competition—namely among similar types of local governments—but has leaved vertical externalities arising from interactions between two overlapping governments sharing the same tax base aside. The purpose of this paper is to provide a simple model within which interjurisdictional tax competition and vertical interactions between two overlapping governments that share the same tax base can be analyzed simultaneously. We find that interjurisdictional tax competition reduces the global tax rate set by both overlapping governments (federal and local) but is unable to solve completely the distortion arising from vertical externalities. The model is also extended to allow for government subsidies to industrial capital. We give sufficient conditions for capital subsidies to be more efficient to attract capital when they are granted at a federal level rather than at a local level.     

Is Targeted Tax Competition Less Harmful than its Remedies?

Some governments have recently called for international accords restricting the use of preferential taxes targeted to attract mobile tax bases from abroad. Are such agreements likely to discourage tax competition or conversely cause it to spread? We study a general model of competition for multiple tax bases and establish conditions for a restriction on preferential regimes to increase or decrease tax revenues. Our results show that restrictions are most likely to be desirable when tax bases are on average highly responsive to a coordinated increase in tax rates by all governments, and when tax bases with large domestic elasticities are also more mobile internationally. Our analysis allows us to reconcile the apparently contradictory results of the previous literature.     

财政层级改革、竞争效应与税收征管

以"省直管县"财政体制改革为准自然实验,运用双重差分模型,从企业实际税率的角度考量财政层级改革对县级政府税收征管行为的影响.结果显示:"省直管县"财政体制改革加剧了县级政府间的税收竞争,显著弱化了县级政府税收征管努力,降低了辖区内企业的实际税率,并且对于处于不同市场化水平和不同行业集中度的企业具有异质性影响.     

Corporate income taxation in Lithuania in the context of the EU

This paper explores Lithuania's competitiveness in the area of corporate income taxation. In order to assess how much freedom of action the country has in designing its own corporate income tax policy, the process of EU tax harmonization is analyzed by evaluating justification for tax harmonization, the major developments and the main outcomes of this process. Lithuania's corporate income tax system is compared with the systems in the other EU countries. Following a macro backward-looking approach, the paper calculates the measures of effective profit tax burden. Effective tax burden measures are computed for the whole enlarged EU. Such calculations are still rare in the economic literature.     

Optimal International Taxation and Growth Rate Convergence: Tax Competition vs. Coordination

Optimal international taxation and its implications for convergence in long run income growth rates are analyzed in the context of an endogenously growing world economy with perfect capital mobility. Under tax competition (i) the residence principle will maximize national welfare; (ii) the optimal long run tax rate on capital incomes from various sources will be zero in all countries; and (iii) long term per capita income growth rates will be equalized across countries. Under tax coordination, (i) becomes irrelevant while (ii) and (iii) will continue to hold. In other words, optimal tax policies are growth-equalizing with and without international policy coordination. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Is Tax Harmonization Useful?

It is a widely acknowledged result of the literature on international tax competition that an inefficient provision of public goods can only be avoided, if taxes are sufficiently coordinated. In this paper we use a model where governments use commodity and factor taxes in the tax competition game. We show that governments will always choose a second-best efficient tax structure in the Nash equilibrium if they have access to a residence-based capital tax and either a destination-based commodity tax or a labor tax. Moreover, we show that tax competition need not foreclose third-best efficiency in a world with a restricted tax policy toolkit.     

Tax Competition and International Public Goods

A well known result in the tax competition literature is that tax rates are set too low in the Nash equilibrium to finance an efficient level of public consumption goods. In this model we introduce international spillovers in public goods provision and show that such spillovers reduce, and in the limiting case of perfect spillovers, eliminate tax competition. There is, however, always underprovision of the public good in equilibrium, since larger spillovers increase the problem of free riding. In an extension to the model, we demonstrate that congestion costs may result in overprovision of the public good.     

税收竞争理论发展综述

上世纪80年代中后期以来,税收竞争理论研究已经成为公共经济学领域研究的重要课题之一。近年来,国外对税收竞争的研究取得了众多的研究成果。而我国的研究起步较晚,仍处于介绍与评析国外理论阶段。随着全球化进程的加快,跨国公司活动的日益活跃,国家与国家之间的联系日益密切,如何充分运用税收竞争理论完善我国涉外税收制度、维护我国在对外经济交往中的税收利益、促进我国国内经济的发展将成为以后重要的研究方向。     

税收竞争和税收套利对国际税收制度的挑战

当前被动投资的税收竞争、主动投资的税收竞争和税收套利等问题阻碍了单一税收原则和受惠原则的实践运用。本文介绍了税收竞争和税收套利对国际税收制度的挑战,并以OECD成员国的应对为例,阐述了OECD成员国不断与时俱进修订税收法规的历程,试图引起人们关注国际税收制度的完善。     

国际税收竞争、资本管制与企业所得税负担调整

在经济全球化的背景下,为争夺国际资本,各国都实行了相当优惠的公司所得税政策。但是,减税等国际税收竞争措施的作用是不确定的,一国应采取的国际税收竞争战略与其国家规模、资本管制政策等因素密切相关。面对近年来引进外国直接投资(FDI)增速放缓和逐步放松资本管制的大背景,我国必须抓住内外资企业所得税制度合并的有利时机,合理调整我国企业所得税负担。     

Prospects for Co-ordination of Corporate Taxation and the Taxation of Interest Income in the EU

This paper evaluates the recent proposals for a co-ordinated capital tax policy in the European Union, focusing on an EU-wide minimum withholding tax on interest income and alternative ways to increase the effective tax rate on corporate profits. The analysis draws on current theoretical and empirical research and views the recent capital tax reforms undertaken by individual member countries as rational adjustments to changing conditions in capital markets. Special emphasis is placed on the constraints for EU tax policy imposed by the possibility of shifting capital income to third countries. The paper concludes that some aggregate efficiency gains can be expected from the EU co-ordination proposals, but additional tax collections will be limited largely to the group of small savers while highly mobile large-scale investors are likely to avoid the EU tax.     

Tax Competition and Fiscal Equalization

This paper analyzes the relation between tax competition and fiscal equalization. In particular, it asks the question whether fiscal equalization schemes can mitigate inefficient tax competition. Two transfer schemes are considered: tax revenue and tax base equalization schemes. The paper shows that equalizing transfers may internalize fiscal externalities. In particular, in a small open economy tax base equalization yields efficient tax rates. Thus, transfer mechanisms with an explicit redistributive character do not always impair efficiency.     

加拿大公司所得税制度与征管经验借鉴

加拿大的公司所得税制度体系完备,征管体系也较为合理,促进了经济的持续稳定发展。本文详细介绍了加拿大公司所得税制度及其征管体系,并提出我国在完善企业所得税制度时应借鉴其对公平与效率的兼顾以及加强税收征管的一些有效经验。     

优化营商环境视域下网络虚构交易的税法因应

我国正积极优化营商环境以推动公平竞争.网络虚构交易作为新兴商业策略,目前正被网络经营者滥用.已有研究多侧重关注如何维护竞争秩序,而较少关注税制因素对竞争秩序的影响.理论上,网络虚构交易所涉增值税、企业所得税等税款均可申请退税.这在一定程度上间接鼓励网络虚构交易的发生,事实上构成了对守法经营者的税制歧视,最终会扭曲电子商...     

"特朗普税改政策"的溢出效应及中国的应对策略

特朗普税改使美国成为税收洼地,各国为争夺国际资本竞相效仿降税,加剧了全球税收竞争,为世界经济复苏增加了更多的不确定性.因此,有必要通过构建利润转移视角的税收竞争模型,揭示特朗普税改对全球经济产生溢出效应的作用机制及赤字约束问题,并运用一般均衡模型(CGE)模拟特朗普税改对世界经济溢出效应的长短期影响.特朗普税改是以邻为壑的经济政策,但长期内对中国等世界主要经济体的负面影响不断减弱,并会对出口产生一定的正面影响.因此,我国应构建国际税务交互管理体制,强化企业税收激励的法制保障,完善税改冲击的应急运行机制.     

欧盟统一市场的间接税协调

间接税协调是欧盟统一市场在发展过程中的一个重要问题,其协调的重点是增值税与消费税。在协调过程中,各成员国基于自身利益所发生的争议以及由此所采取的抵制行为在很大程度上阻碍了间接税协调的进程。展望未来,欧盟间接税协调依然面临着许多难以克服的困难,协调的结果将主要取决于各成员国彼此之间能够做出多少妥协和让步。