IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_781.html

Tax Competition and Profit Shifting: On the Relationship between Personal and Corporate Tax Rates

Author

Listed:
  • Clemens Fuest

  • Alfons J. Weichenrieder

Abstract

The residence-based taxation of interest income in the EU faces the difficulty that taxpayers may evade taxation by holding bank accounts in other countries. The EU therefore makes considerable efforts to achieve cooperation among EU member states in order to improve tax enforcement. The present paper argues that international cooperation in tax enforcement may not be sufficient to implement an effective taxation of interest income. The reason is that taxpayers may also avoid income taxes by holding financial assets in the corporate sector. If corporate tax competition reduces corporate income tax rates below personal income tax rates, taxpayers will increasingly shift income from the personal to the corporate sphere. We show that this type of income shifting is empirically important. According to our results, a one percentage point increase in the personal income tax rate increases the fraction of private savings held within corporations by approximately 2.6 percentage points.

Suggested Citation

  • Clemens Fuest & Alfons J. Weichenrieder, 2002. "Tax Competition and Profit Shifting: On the Relationship between Personal and Corporate Tax Rates," CESifo Working Paper Series 781, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_781
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ifo.de/DocDL/cesifo_wp781.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Alfons Weichenrieder, 1996. "Anti-tax-avoidance provisions and the size of foreign direct investment," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 3(1), pages 67-81, January.
    3. Bagwell, Laurie Simon & Shoven, John B, 1989. "Cash Distributions to Shareholders," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 129-140, Summer.
    4. Roger H. Gordon & Joel Slemrod, 1998. "Are "Real" Responses to Taxes Simply Income Shifting Between Corporate and Personal Tax Bases?," NBER Working Papers 6576, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Gordon, R.H. & Mackie-Mason, J.K., 1994. "Why Is There Corporation Taxation in a Small Open Economy? The Role of Transfer Pricing and Income Shifting," Working Papers 359, Research Seminar in International Economics, University of Michigan.
    6. Alfons Weichenrieder, 1996. "Fighting international tax avoidance," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 17(1), pages 37-58, February.
    7. Roger H. Gordon & Jeffrey K. MacKie-Mason, 1995. "Why Is There Corporate Taxation in a Small Open Economy? The Role of Transfer Pricing and Income Shifting," NBER Chapters, in: The Effects of Taxation on Multinational Corporations, pages 67-94, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Sijbren Cnossen, 1999. "Taxing Capital Income in the Nordic Countries: A Model for the European Union?," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 56(1), pages 18-50, March.
    9. Kanbur, Ravi & Keen, Michael, 1993. "Jeux Sans Frontieres: Tax Competition and Tax Coordination When Countries Differ in Size," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(4), pages 877-892, September.
    10. Gordon, Roger H. & MacKie-Mason, Jeffrey K., 1994. "Tax distortions to the choice of organizational form," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 279-306, October.
    11. Mackie-Mason, Jeffrey K & Gordon, Roger H, 1997. "How Much Do Taxes Discourage Incorporation?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(2), pages 477-505, June.
    12. Wellisch,Dietmar, 2000. "Theory of Public Finance in a Federal State," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521630351.
    13. Clemens Fuest & Bernd Huber & Søren Bo Nielsen, "undated". "Why Is the Corporate Tax Rate Lower than the Personal Tax Rate?," EPRU Working Paper Series 00-17, Economic Policy Research Unit (EPRU), University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    14. Michael Keen, 1993. "The welfare economics of tax co-ordination in the European Community : a survey," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 14(2), pages 15-36, February.
    15. 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.
    16. Roger H. Gordon, 1998. "Can High Personal Tax Rates Encourage Entrepreneurial Activity?," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 45(1), pages 49-80, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Alfons J. Weichenrieder, 2005. "(Why) Do we need Corporate Taxation?," CESifo Working Paper Series 1495, CESifo.
    2. 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.
    3. F lix Dom nguez Barrero & Julio L pez Laborda & Fernando Rodrigo Sauco, 2005. "Do Corporate and Personal Income Taxes Affect Incorporation?," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 174(3), pages 55-86, September.
    4. Sven Stöwhase, 2005. "Asymmetric Capital Tax Competition with Profit Shifting," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 85(2), pages 175-196, August.
    5. Lejour, Arjan & Massenz, Gabriella, 2020. "Income Shifting and Organizational Form Choice : Evidence from Europe," Other publications TiSEM 3138edef-d645-4113-9981-3, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    6. Bernd Genser & Andreas Haufler, 1996. "Tax competition, tax coordination and tax harmonization: The effects of EMU," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 23(1), pages 59-89, February.
    7. Bilicka, Katarzyna & Raei, Sepideh, 2023. "Output distortions and the choice of legal form of organization," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    8. Peter Egger & Christian Keuschnigg & Hannes Winner, 2008. "Incorporation and Taxation: Theory and Firm-level Evidence," University of St. Gallen Department of Economics working paper series 2008 2008-20, Department of Economics, University of St. Gallen.
    9. 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.
    10. Clemens Fuest & Bernd Huber & Søren Bo Nielsen, "undated". "Why Is the Corporate Tax Rate Lower than the Personal Tax Rate?," EPRU Working Paper Series 00-17, Economic Policy Research Unit (EPRU), University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    11. Onji, Kazuki, 2009. "The response of firms to eligibility thresholds: Evidence from the Japanese value-added tax," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(5-6), pages 766-775, June.
    12. Georg Gottholmseder & Heinz Handler, 2008. "Ziele und Optionen der Steuerreform: Reformoptionen für die Unternehmensbesteuerung," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 33943.
    13. Ruud Mooij & Gaëtan Nicodème, 2008. "Corporate tax policy and incorporation in the EU," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 15(4), pages 478-498, August.
    14. Andreas Haufler, 1996. "Optimal factor and commodity taxation in a small open economy," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 3(4), pages 523-527, October.
    15. Thomas A. Gresik, 2001. "The Taxing Task of Taxing Transnationals," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(3), pages 800-838, September.
    16. Hanlon, Michelle & Heitzman, Shane, 2010. "A review of tax research," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 127-178, December.
    17. Paolo Panteghini, 2009. "The capital structure of multinational companies under tax competition," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 16(1), pages 59-81, February.
    18. Stöwhase, Sven, 2002. "Profit Shifting opportunities, Multinationals, and the determinants of FDI," Discussion Papers in Economics 29, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    19. Ege Can, 2022. "Income taxation, entrepreneurship, and incorporation status of self-employment," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 29(5), pages 1260-1293, October.
    20. Annette Alstadsaeter, 2007. "The Achilles Heel of the Dual Income Tax: The Norwegian Case," Finnish Economic Papers, Finnish Economic Association, vol. 20(1), pages 5-22, Spring.

    More about this item

    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:ces:ceswps:_781. 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: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.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.