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Must losing taxes on saving be harmful?

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  • Huizinga, Harry
  • Nielsen, Søren Bo

Abstract

Internationalization offers enhanced opportunities for individuals to place savings abroad and evade domestic saving taxation. This paper asks whether the concomitant loss of saving taxation necessarily is harmful. To this end we construct a model of many symmetric countries in which public goods are financed by taxes on saving and investment. There is international cross-ownership of firms, and countries are assumed to be unable to tax away pure profits. Countries then face an incentive to impose a rather high investment tax also borne by foreigners. In this setting, the loss of the saving tax instrument on account of international tax evasion may prevent the overall saving-investment tax wedge from becoming too high, and hence may be beneficial for moderate preferences for public goods.

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  • Huizinga, Harry & Nielsen, Søren Bo, 2008. "Must losing taxes on saving be harmful?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(5-6), pages 1183-1192, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:92:y:2008:i:5-6:p:1183-1192
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    Cited by:

    1. Becker, Johannes & Wilson, John D., 2023. "Tax competition with two tax instruments — and tax base erosion," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 225(C).
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    3. Akira Yakita, 2014. "Effects of capital taxation on economies with different demographic changes: short term versus long term," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 27(1), pages 257-273, January.
    4. Akira Yakita, 2014. "Capital Tax Competition and Cooperation with Endogenous Capital Formation," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(3), pages 459-468, August.
    5. Johannes Becker & John D. Wilson, 2021. "Tax Competition with Two Tax Instruments - and Tax Evasion," CESifo Working Paper Series 9318, CESifo.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • H87 - Public Economics - - Miscellaneous Issues - - - International Fiscal Issues; International Public Goods

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