Multinational companies can shift profit and income between branches in order to reduce the overall tax liabilities of the company. The result is a tax competition between countries. In this paper we consider the sequential choice of tax rates to illustrate the potential effects of tax leadership. We use a profit shifting model with multinational firms that operate in two countries, large and s...

This paper analyzes the relation between tax auditing and fiscal equalization in the context of fiscal competition. We incorporate a model of tax evasion by firms into a standard tax competition framework where regional governments use their audit rates as a strategic instrument to engage in fiscal competition. It is well known that in such a situation fiscal equalization can mitigate the ineff...

This paper analyzes asymmetric tax competition under formula apportionment. It sets up a model with multinationals where two welfare-maximizing jurisdictions of different size levy source-based corporate taxes and allocate taxes using the formula approach. At the Nash equilibrium, tax rates are too low and public goods quantities are to small. The paper shows that the larger country levies a la...

When multinational firms expand their operations in tax havens, do they divert activity from non-havens? Much of the debate on tax competition presumes that the answer to this question is yes. This paper offers a model for examining the relationship between activity in havens and non-havens, and discusses the implications of recent evidence in light of that model. Properly interpreted, the evid...

This paper shows how a popular system of federal revenue equalization grants can limit tax competition among subnational governments, correct fiscal externalities, and increase government spending. Remarkably, an equalization grant can implement efficient policy choices by regional governments, regardless of a wide variety of differences in regional tax capacity, tastes for public spending, and...

We study a model of tax competition between two countries when both skilled and unskilled workers make their migration decisions simultaneously and wages are endogenously determined. If both factors of production are allowed to migrate freely and when the demand for skilled labor is not so elastic, the problem typically predicted in the literature of tax competition that increased mobility of p...

Countries around the world continue to tax corporate income at significant rates despite downward pressures from international competition. Average statutory corporate income tax rates fell from 46% in 1982 to 33% in 1999, though tax bases simultaneously broadened, as a result of which average corporate tax collections actually rose from 2.1% of GDP in 1982 to 2.4% of GDP in 1999. Two pieces of...

Following the seminal work of late 19th century economist Etienne Laspeyres we analyse the incidence of the Prussian milling and butchery tax shortly before its repeal in 1875. A comparison of flour prices in cities which levied this tax with cities which did not reveals unusually strong tax overshifting. Modern theories which explain overshifting of a specific tax argue with quality improvemen...

Tax incentives offered to attract firms engaged in foreign direct investment are often tied to performance requirements such as domestic content restrictions. The tax competition literature has repeatedly shown that competition between municipalities for mobile firms tends to drive taxes to low levels. One would expect a comparable result for burdensome performance requirements. Despite this, t...

Tax treaties are often viewed as a mechanism for eliminating tax competition, however this approach ignores the need for bargaining over the treaty’s terms. This paper focuses on how bargaining can affect the withholding taxes set under the treaty. In a simple framework, we develop hypotheses about patterns in treaty tax rates. A key determinant for these patterns is the relative size of bilate...