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Multinationals and services imports from havens: when policies stand in the way of tax planning

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  • Joana Garcia

Abstract

We study the extensive and intensive margins of services imports by multinational groups from tax havens, and investigate to what extent those imports may have profit shifting motives. Drawing on rich data covering the universe of multinational groups with a presence in Portugal, we show that in a high-tax country where policies strongly discourage transactions with tax havens, multinational groups do not have an excess propensity to import intra-group from those countries. For the havens directly targeted by the policies, there is even a negative excess propensity to do so. This notwithstanding, we document the existence of an excessive value of intra-group imports from a set of targeted havens.

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  • Joana Garcia, 2022. "Multinationals and services imports from havens: when policies stand in the way of tax planning," Working Papers w202214, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
    • Handle: RePEc:ptu:wpaper:w202214
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