Negative Spillovers in International Corporate Taxation and the European Union

Abstract

Jurisdictions can engage in different types of aggressive tax policies to varying degrees. These policies can have negative spillover effects on other jurisdictions. In the realm of corporate taxation, these effects consist of base erosion and profit shifting and perceived pressures to reduce corporate taxes. Both direct and indirect effects undermine the efforts especially of developing countries at mobilising domestic resources to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. We analyse the intensity of corrosive tax policies by exploiting a new legal dataset compiled for the Corporate Tax Haven Index (CTHI). Relying on rigorously defined indicators, the dataset allows comparative analyses of negative and positive spillover pathways in the corporate income tax systems of 64 jurisdictions. Tax policies under review comprise, for example, preferential tax regimes, extremely low tax rates agreed through secretive tax rulings, economic zones and tax holidays. Comparing the 27 European Union (EU) member states with five African developing countries, we find important differences. Except for two indicators (loss utilisation and economic zones/tax holidays), the European Union members are found to consistently engage in more aggressive corporate tax policies than the African countries. These heightened risks for negative spillovers emanating from the EU27 corporate tax rules stand in conflict with the stated intentions by the European Union to support good governance in tax matters and its commitment to ensure policy coherence for development. The chapter provides recommendations on how to reduce the risks for negative spillovers in corporate taxation and to exit the race to the bottom in corporate taxation.