IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fer/dpaper/337.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Effects of Equalization Tax on Multinational Investments and Transfer Pricing

Author

Listed:
  • Kari, Seppo
  • Ylä-Liedenpohja, Jouko

Abstract

This paper analyzes effects of equalization tax on the decisions of a multinational company. Equalization tax is an extra corporation tax on dividend distributions to ensure that the underlying profit of a dividend has borne a tax in the corporate sector equal to the imputation credit given to the shareholder. Equalization tax is shown to increase incentives for home-country real and financial investments and for transfer pricing to shift taxable income even from low-tax countries to high-tax home-countries of the parent companies. The current EU process of exchanging the imputation system and an equalization tax for a classical system may thus have adverse tax revenue effects in the countries concerned, but improves efficiency of the global economy.

Suggested Citation

  • Kari, Seppo & Ylä-Liedenpohja, Jouko, 2004. "Effects of Equalization Tax on Multinational Investments and Transfer Pricing," Discussion Papers 337, VATT Institute for Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:fer:dpaper:337
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.doria.fi/handle/10024/148316
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Weichenrieder, Alfons J, 1996. " Transfer Pricing, Double Taxation, and the Cost of Capital," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 98(3), pages 445-452.
    2. Weichenrieder, Alfons J., 1998. "Foreign profits and domestic investment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 451-463, September.
    3. Haufler, Andreas & Schjelderup, Guttorm, 2000. "Corporate Tax Systems and Cross Country Profit Shifting," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 52(2), pages 306-325, April.
    4. Harold Freeman & Rachel Griffith, 1993. "Surplus ACT - a solution in sight?," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 14(4), pages 58-73, November.
    5. Hans-Werner Sinn, 1990. "Taxation and the Birth of Foreign Subsidiaries," NBER Working Papers 3519, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Hartman, David G., 1985. "Tax policy and foreign direct investment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 107-121, February.
    7. Alan J. Auerbach, 1979. "Wealth Maximization and the Cost of Capital," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 93(3), pages 433-446.
    8. Bond, Stephen R & Chennells, Lucy & Devereux, Michael P, 1996. "Taxes and Company Dividends: A Microeconometric Investigation Exploiting Cross-Section Variation in Taxes," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 106(435), pages 320-333, March.
    9. Kari, Seppo, 1999. "Dynamic Behaviour of the Firm Under Dual Income Taxation," Research Reports 51, VATT Institute for Economic Research.
    10. Boadway, Robin & Bruce, Neil, 1992. "Problems with integrating corporate and personal income taxes in an open economy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 39-66, June.
    11. Michael Devereux & Harold Freeman, 1995. "The impact of tax on foreign direct investment: Empirical evidence and the implications for tax integration schemes," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 2(1), pages 85-106, February.
    12. Hans‐Werner Sinn, 1984. "Die Bedeutung des Accelerated Cost Recovery System für den internationalen Kapitalverkehr," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(4), pages 542-576, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rainer Niemann & Mariana Sailer, 2023. "Is analytical tax research alive and kicking? Insights from 2000 until 2022," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 93(6), pages 1149-1212, August.
    2. Seppo Kari & Jouko Ylä-Liedenpohja, 2004. "Cost of Capital for Cross-Border Investment: The Fallacy of Estonia as a Tax Haven," Baltic Journal of Economics, Baltic International Centre for Economic Policy Studies, vol. 5(1), pages 28-43, December.
    3. Jarkko Harju & Seppo Kari, 2017. "Dividend Taxes and Decisions of MNEs: Evidence from a Finnish Tax Reform," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 63(1), pages 45-77.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dickescheid, Thomas, 2002. "Steuerwettbewerb und Direktinvestitionen," Beiträge zur Finanzwissenschaft, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, edition 1, volume 16, number urn:isbn:9783161477348, December.
    2. Jarkko Harju & Seppo Kari, 2017. "Dividend Taxes and Decisions of MNEs: Evidence from a Finnish Tax Reform," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 63(1), pages 45-77.
    3. Weichenrieder, Alfons J., 1998. "Foreign profits and domestic investment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 451-463, September.
    4. Gordon, Roger H. & Hines, James Jr, 2002. "International taxation," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 28, pages 1935-1995, Elsevier.
    5. Seppo Kari & Jouko Ylä-Liedenpohja, 2004. "Cost of Capital for Cross-Border Investment: The Fallacy of Estonia as a Tax Haven," Baltic Journal of Economics, Baltic International Centre for Economic Policy Studies, vol. 5(1), pages 28-43, December.
    6. Vijay Jog & Jianmin Tang, 2001. "Tax Reforms, Debt Shifting and Tax Revenues: Multinational Corporations in Canada," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 8(1), pages 5-25, January.
    7. Thomas A. Gresik, 2001. "The Taxing Task of Taxing Transnationals," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(3), pages 800-838, September.
    8. Marcel Gérard, 2002. "Interjurisdictional Company Taxation in Europe, the German Reform and the New EU Suggested Direction," CESifo Working Paper Series 636, CESifo.
    9. Anna P. Kireyenko, 2015. "Methods of investigating taxation in today’s foreign literature," Journal of Tax Reform, Graduate School of Economics and Management, Ural Federal University, vol. 1(2-3), pages 209-228.
    10. Martin Jacob & Jan Södersten, 2013. "Mitigating Shareholder Taxation in Small Open Economies?," Finnish Economic Papers, Finnish Economic Association, vol. 26(1), pages 1-12, Spring.
    11. Jouko Ylä-Liedenpohja, 2003. "Taxation and Valuation of International Real Investments," CESifo Working Paper Series 1013, CESifo.
    12. Peter Birch Sørensen, 2006. "Can Capital Income Taxes Survive? And Should They?," EPRU Working Paper Series 06-06, Economic Policy Research Unit (EPRU), University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    13. Peter Egger & Simon Loretz & Michael Pfaffermayr & Hannes Winner, 2006. "Corporate Taxation and Multinational Activity," CESifo Working Paper Series 1773, CESifo.
    14. Sorensen, Peter Birch, 1995. "Changing Views of the Corporate Income Tax," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 48(2), pages 279-94, June.
    15. Kari, Seppo & Ylä-Liedenpohja, Jouko, 2002. "Classical Corporation Tax as a Global Means of Tax Harmonization," Discussion Papers 266, VATT Institute for Economic Research.
    16. Altshuler, Rosanne & Grubert, Harry, 2003. "Repatriation taxes, repatriation strategies and multinational financial policy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 73-107, January.
    17. Jason Cummins & R. Glenn Hubbard, 1995. "The Tax Sensitivity of Foreign Direct Investment: Evidence from Firm-Level Panel Data," NBER Chapters, in: The Effects of Taxation on Multinational Corporations, pages 123-152, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Fuest, Clemens & Huber, Bernd, 2004. "Why do countries combine the exemption system for the taxation of foreign profits with domestic double taxation relief?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 219-231, January.
    19. Auerbach, Alan J., 2002. "Taxation and corporate financial policy," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 19, pages 1251-1292, Elsevier.
    20. Peter Birch Sørensen, 2006. "Can Capital Income Taxes Survive? And Should They?," CESifo Working Paper Series 1793, CESifo.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Dividend taxation; International taxation; Investment incentives; Transfer pricing; International comparisons; Kansainväliset vertailut; Taxation; Verotus; Taxation and Social Transfers; Julkisen talouden rahoitus ja tulonsiirrot; F230 - Multinational Firms; International Business (International Competitiveness); H250 - Business Taxes and Subsidies including sales and value-added (VAT); H320 - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents: Firm;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H25 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Business Taxes and Subsidies
    • F23 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - Multinational Firms; International Business
    • H32 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Firm

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fer:dpaper:337. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Anita Niskanen (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vatttfi.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.