Abstract: Larger firms are more likely to use tax haven operations to exploit international tax differences. We study tax competition between a large country and a tax haven. In the large country, heterogeneous firms operate under monopolistic competition and can choose to shift profits abroad. We show that a higher degree of firm heterogeneity (a mean-preserving spread of the cost distribution) increases the degree of tax competition, i.e. it decreases the equilibrium tax rate of the large country, leads to higher outflows of its tax base and thus decreases its equilibrium tax revenues. Similar effects hold for a higher substitutability across varieties.

 

 

The EU Commission's Proposal for a Financial Transaction Tax (with  John Vella and Clemens Fuest) British Tax Review 6, 2011.
British Tax Review, December 2011
CBT Working Paper 11/17 (December 2011) download

 

Abstract: Firms generating larger surpluses on average pay higher wages. We study the effect of this rent-sharing between firms and workers on international tax competition. In our model, firms in a large country can shift surplus to a tax haven. In the benchmark case firms only have a tax incentive for profit shifting as shifted surplus is fully taken into account in the wage bargaining. In this case rent-sharing decreases the competitive pressure on the large country and leads to higher equilibrium tax rates. When workers do not observe the full surplus shifted, a wage incentive arises. Profit shifting then becomes more attractive as it reduces the surplus bargained over with workers. If this effect is sufficiently strong, rent-sharing increases the competitive pressure on the large country, which implies a lower equilibrium tax rate.