We study corporate income taxation when firms operating in multiple jurisdictions can shift income using tax planning strategies. Because income of corporate groups is not consolidated for tax purposes in Canada, firms may use financial techniques, such as lending among affiliates, to reduce subnational corporate taxes. A simple theoretical model shows how income shifting affects real investment, government revenues, and tax base elasticities, depending on whether firms must allocate income to provinces or not. We then analyze data from administrative tax records to compare the behaviour of corporate subsidiaries that may engage in income shifting to comparable firms that must use the statutory allocation formula to determine their taxable in each province. The evidence suggests that income shifting has pronounced effects on provincial tax bases. According to our preferred estimate, the elasticity of taxable income with respect to tax rates for “income shifting” firms is 4.9, compared to 2.3 for other, comparable firms.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by International Tax Program, Institute for International Business, Joseph L. Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto in its series International Tax Program Papers with number
0402.
Find related papers by JEL classification: O51 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - U.S.; Canada H71 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue H25 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Business Taxes and Subsidies
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.) This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.