A Global Minimum Tax for Large Firms Only: Implications for Tax Competition

The Global Minimum Tax (GMT) is applied only to firms above a certain threshold size. We set up a simple model of tax competition and profit shifting by heterogeneous multinational firms to evaluate the effects of this partial coverage of the GMT. A non-haven and a haven country are bound by the GMT rate for large multinationals, but can set tax rates for firms below the threshold non-cooperatively. We show that the introduction of the GMT with a moderate tax rate increases tax revenues in both the non-haven and the haven countries. Gradual increases in the GMT rate, however, trigger a sudden change in the tax competition equilibrium from a uniform corporate tax rate to a split rate, at which tax revenues in the non-haven country decline. In contrast, gradual increases in the coverage of the GMT never harm the non-haven country. We also discuss the quantitative effects of introducing a 15% GMT rate in a calibrated version of our model.