Tax treaty shopping: structural determinants of Foreign Direct Investment routed through the Netherlands

Many multinationals divert Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) through conduit countries that have a favorable tax treaty network, to avoid host country withholding taxes. This is referred to as tax treaty shopping. The Netherlands is the world’s largest conduit country; in 2009, multinationals held approximately €1,600 billion of FDI via the Netherlands. This paper uses microdata from Dutch Special Purpose Entities to analyze geographical patterns and structural determinants of FDI diversion. Regression analysis confirms that tax treaties are a key determinant of FDI routed through the Netherlands. The effect of tax treaties on FDI diversion partly arises from the reduction of dividend withholding tax rates, which provides strong evidence for tax treaty shopping.     

Determinants of Regional Investment Decisions in China: An Econometric Model of Tax Incentive Policy

This paper examines whether concessionary tax rates and tax incentives can attract foreign direct investment (FDI) into certain designated areas in China. Since China opened its doors to foreign investors in 1979, tax benefits have been used extensively to attract FDI into different areas. In 1991, a new tax law was introduced which superseded two previous income tax laws. This new law provides additional tax benefits which improve the investment environment for foreign investors. This study investigates the effect of China's tax rates and tax incentive policy on FDI and on the locational choices of foreign firms. Our empirical results indicate that tax rates and incentives are important determinants of regional investment decisions in China, after controlling for potential confounding variables covering infrastructure, unemployment rate, wage rate and agglomeration economics. Specifically, areas offering lower tax rates and increased tax incentives are found to attract greater amounts of FDI. The impetus of the tax effect on FDI is more apparent in the post-1991 period due to changes in the tax laws. Our results also suggest that infrastructure variables are important determinants of regional investment decisions.     

有效预警上市公司违规的递延所得税异动指标和人工智能模型

2000-2017年,3434家A股上市公司样本中的47.79%至少有一次违规记录,每年平均有17%的公司违规,而监管机构平均需要2.7年查证并通告违规行为。我们用当年数据构建递延所得税异动指标,可有效预判违规,并发现监管机构未能识别这一指标的警示作用,实际激励了违规公司通过操纵递延所得税提高财务指标以规避稽查。进一步构建决策树模型,对违规事件实现样本外精准判别。本文揭示了A股公司大面积违规而稽查过程冗长迟缓这一重要现象,并分析了违规机制,指出了所得税数据在稽查违规中可以发挥的预警作用,为监管者和投资者提供有效预警上市公司违规行为的新指标和方法。     

A partial race to the bottom: corporate tax developments in emerging and developing economies

This paper assembles a new dataset on corporate income tax regimes in 50 emerging and developing economies over 1996–2007 and analyzes their impact on corporate tax revenues and domestic and foreign investment. It computes effective tax rates to take account of special regimes, such as tax holidays, temporarily reduced rates and increased investment allowances. There is evidence of a partial race to the bottom: countries have been under pressure to lower tax rates in order to lure and boost investment. In the case of standard tax systems (i.e. tax rules applying under normal circumstances), the effective tax rate reductions have not been larger than those witnessed in advanced economies, and revenues have held up well over the sample period. However, a race to the bottom is evident among special regimes, most notably in the case of Africa, creating effectively a parallel tax system where rates have fallen to almost zero. Regression analysis reveals higher tax rates adversely affect domestic investment and FDI, but do raise revenues in the short run.     

The Effective Tax Burden of Companies and of Highly Skilled Manpower: Tax Policy Strategies in a Globalised Economy*

Company taxes and taxes on highly skilled labour both influence the attractiveness of a particular region as a location for investment. We measure the effective tax burden on capital investment and on highly qualified labour in 33 locations across Europe and the United States. We then correlate both types of tax burden in order to study the different tax policy strategies applied in different countries. We find that effective tax rates on companies and on highly skilled employees are closely correlated for a number of countries. Ireland and most new EU Member States impose relatively lower taxes on capital investment than on highly skilled manpower. Conversely, in the US, companies are taxed heavily but the effective tax rate on highly skilled employees is moderate.     

Neutral Taxation of Shareholder Income

A Norwegian tax reform committee recently proposed a personal tax on the realized income from shares after deduction for an imputed risk-free rate of return. This paper describes the design of the proposed shareholder income tax and shows that it will be neutral with respect to investment and financing decisions and decisions to realize capital gains, provided that full loss offsets are granted. Thus the tax allows some non-distortionary double taxation of corporate equity income. With an appropriate choice of tax rates, it also solves the problem of income shifting under a dual income tax. JEL Code: H24, H25     

Corporate governance and merger and acquisition (M&A) FDI: Firm-level evidence from Japanese FDI into the US

Merger and acquisition (M&A) is a mechanism for promoting corporate governance. This suggests that an improvement in overall corporate governance may have a negative effect on M&A activity. Since M&A foreign direct investment (FDI) is a cross-border variant of M&A, we use firm-level data to investigate the effect of US corporate governance on Japanese M&A FDI. Our results indicate that two landmark corporate governance regulations by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 1992 contributed significantly to the sharp decline in Japanese M&A FDI in the US during the 1990s. Our evidence lends some support to the notion that corporate governance may affect not only domestic M&A activity but also cross-border M&A activity. Our study also sheds some light on the puzzle of why Japanese FDI into the US fell during the 1990s despite the depreciation of the US dollar.     

Inward FDI and Financial Constraints in Central and East European Countries

This study examines whether domestically owned firms in Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) confronted higher financial constraints in their investments than did foreign-owned enterprises, and whether the domestic enterprises' financial constraints were caused by incoming foreign direct investment (FDI). In theory, foreign investment may be needed to bring in capital only initially; the subsequent investment can be financed locally. On the other hand, foreign-owned companies may be more attractive borrowers, crowding out domestic firms from imperfect host-country capital markets. Both hypotheses, however, are rejected, as the results are not consistent across different dependent variables and verification methods. There is some evidence that FDI reduced foreign subsidiaries' constraints without increasing the constraints suffered by the domestic enterprises. Tests are performed with regressions based on two alternative firm-level models, a direct one using perception-based assessment of the constraints, and an indirect one with financial indicators.     

两法合并对FDI的影响分析

两法合并解决了因企业"身份"不同而享受不同税收待遇的问题,为各类企业创造了一个公平竞争的税收法制环境。新企业所得税法对FDI税收政策的变化,导致了外商来华投资的方式也发生了变化。这表明两法合并对FDI会产生短期影响,至于是否会改变长期发展态势是由综合因素体系决定的,因此,今后要注意防范税收累积效应。     

有效预警上市公司违规的递延所得税异动指标和人工智能模型

2000-2017年,3434家A股上市公司样本中的47.79%至少有一次违规记录,每年平均有17%的公司违规,而监管机构平均需要2.7年查证并通告违规行为。我们用当年数据构建递延所得税异动指标,可有效预判违规,并发现监管机构未能识别这一指标的警示作用,实际激励了违规公司通过操纵递延所得税提高财务指标以规避稽查。进一步构建决策树模型,对违规事件实现样本外精准判别。本文揭示了A股公司大面积违规而稽查过程冗长迟缓这一重要现象,并分析了违规机制,指出了所得税数据在稽查违规中可以发挥的预警作用,为监管者和投资者提供有效预警上市公司违规行为的新指标和方法。     

Firm-specific forward-looking effective tax rates

This paper computes effective (marginal and average) tax rates that account for bilateral aspects of taxation and, therefore, vary across country-pairs and years. These tax rates serve to estimate the impact of corporate taxation on outbound stocks of bilateral foreign direct investment (FDI) among OECD countries between 1991 and 2002. The findings indicate that outbound FDI is positively related to the parent and host country tax burden and negatively associated with bilateral effective tax rates. Relying only on unilateral (country and time variant) rather than on both unilateral and bilateral (country-pair and time variant) effective tax rates leads to biased estimates of the impact of corporate taxation on FDI.     

税率降低与企业固定资产投资的DID实证分析——来自上市公司的经验证据

为考察我国企业所得税改革对固定资产投资的影响效应,以税改前后上市公司执行税率的不同作为研究的切入点,借鉴国外衡量政策效应的主流计量研究方法——DID(Difference in Difference)方法,使用上市公司数据对此予以实证分析。研究结果表明,税改前后上市公司执行税率的不同,对不同所有制性质的上市公司的固定资产投资影响明显不同。因此,要有效调整企业的固定资产投资,应对这两类身份不同的企业制定有所区别的政策。     

Bilateral effective tax rates and foreign direct investment

This paper computes effective (marginal and average) tax rates that account for bilateral aspects of taxation and, therefore, vary across country-pairs and years. These tax rates serve to estimate the impact of corporate taxation on outbound stocks of bilateral foreign direct investment (FDI) among OECD countries between 1991 and 2002. The findings indicate that outbound FDI is positively related to the parent and host country tax burden and negatively associated with bilateral effective tax rates. Relying only on unilateral (country and time variant) rather than on both unilateral and bilateral (country-pair and time variant) effective tax rates leads to biased estimates of the impact of corporate taxation on FDI.     

估算中国的IFDI和OFDI——来自“避税天堂”与返程投资的证据

本文梳理了现有文献对离岸金融中心导致的直接投资头寸统计偏差进行修正的方法,详细比较了直接投资头寸数据集的优劣差异,并以CDIS宏观数据集为基础,引入Orbis微观企业数据库作为重要补充,对直接投资的动机按避税目的和境外上市目的进行区分,以此估算我国的IFDI和OFDI存量。结果表明:(1)估算后,来自离岸金融中心的IFDI调减1.1万亿美元,其中超过80%是出于避税目的进行的返程投资;(2)考虑VIE架构境外上市企业的影响后,返程投资占比增长至近37%,规模约1万亿美元,其中VIE架构境外上市企业贡献了16%;(3)我国对外投资存在经过“避税天堂”进行中转的现象,其中最终投向英属维尔京群岛的OFDI存量约占1/4,是我国实际OFDI的最主要投向地。     

谁在补贴美国?——美国对外资产负债规模及收益率差异分析

美国在对外净负债的情况下,其海外资产的收入仍超过其因对外债务支付的利息,这也就是不少学者所说的超级特权。通过对比美国与主要投资对象的资产负债头寸和收益率数据,我们发现亚洲出口大国和地区性金融中心为美国提供了资本补贴——既给美国提供大量廉价资本,又为美国在本地的投资提供高额回报。     

新所得税准则对上市公司盈利能力影响分析

新所得税准则要求企业运用资产负债表债务法进行所得税核算。资产负债表债务法通过比较资产负债的计税基础计算出应纳税暂时性差异和可抵扣暂时性差异,进而确认当期递延所得税,调整当期的所得税费用,所得税费用的调整会影响企业当期的净利润,进而影响股东的每股收益。因此,暂时性差异会影响企业的盈利能力。本文采用统计分析方法,分析新所得税准则对上市公司盈利能力的影响。     

Empirical evidence on the effects of tax incentives

This paper considers two empirical questions about tax incentives: (i)?are incentives used as tools of tax competition and (ii)?how effective are incentives in attracting investment? To answer these, we prepared a new dataset of tax incentives in over 40 Latin American, Caribbean and African countries for the period 1985–2004. Using spatial econometrics techniques for panel data to answer the first question, we find evidence for strategic interaction in tax holidays, in addition to the well-known competition over the corporate income tax (CIT) rate. We find no robust evidence, however, for competition over investment allowances and tax credits. Using dynamic panel data econometrics to answer the second question, we find evidence that lower CIT rates and longer tax holidays are effective in attracting FDI in Latin America and the Caribbean but not in Africa. None of the tax incentives is effective in boosting gross private fixed capital formation.     

Income repatriation decision for multinational corporations: Tax issues

This paper analyzes the existing asymmetry in the US corporate tax law governing the determination of foreign tax credits earned by US firms with foreign subsidiaries. The existing asymmetry results in the US government de facto holding foreign currency put options against US firms with foreign subsidiaries. Combined with the exchange rate volatility, this tax law asymmetry reduces the effective foreign after-tax rate of return and, thus, makes it profitable for US firms to repatriate their foreign source income earlier even when the foreign after-tax rate of return is higher than the domestic rate. Although this paper identifies this asymmetry in the tax law and analyzes its potential effect on the timing of foreign source income repatriation, it is an open question as to the economic significance of this tax code feature provided the firms’ ability to curry the unused tax credit forward for up to 10 years.     

Taxation and Foreign Direct Investment: A Synthesis of Empirical Research

This paper reviews the empirical literature on the impact of company taxes on the allocation of foreign direct investment. We compare the outcomes of 25 empirical studies by computing the tax rate elasticity under a uniform definition. The median value of the tax rate elasticity in the literature is around –3.3 (i.e. a 1%-point reduction in the host-country tax rate raises foreign direct investment in that country by 3.3%). There exists substantial variation across studies, however. By performing a meta-analysis, the paper aims to explain this variation by the differences in characteristics of the underlying studies. Systematic differences between studies are found with respect to the type of foreign capital data used, and the type of tax rates adopted. We find no systematic differences in the responsiveness of investors from tax credit countries and tax exemption countries.     

Taxing Multinationals

This paper analyzes the effects of tax policy on the strategic choices of multinationals and on national welfare. Contrary to existing theory, in the absence of foreign taxation, deferral of home-country taxation until earnings on outbound FDI are repatriated is generally superior to including those earnings in current income. This holds even if the home country taxes domestic investment less generously. This is also generally superior to exempting foreign income. Foreign taxes permit foreign governments to capture some of the pre-tax economic rent from the home-country FDI; this reduces the benefit to the home country of more generous taxation of outbound FDI.