Externalities in International Tax Enforcement: Theory and Evidence

Journal article: We show that the fiscal authorities of high-tax countries can lack the incentives to combat profit shifting to tax havens. Instead, they have incentives to focus their enforcement efforts on relocating profits booked by multinationals in other high-tax countries, crowding out the enforcement on transactions that shift profits to tax havens, and reducing the global tax payments of multinational companies. The predictions of our model are motivated and supported by the analysis of two new datasets: the universe of transfer price corrections conducted by the Danish tax authority, and new cross-country data on international tax enforcement.

Author(s)

Thomas Tørsløv, Ludvig Wier, Gabriel Zucman

Journal
  • American Economic Journal: Economic Policy
Date of publication
  • 2023
Keywords JEL
E62 F23 H25 H26 H87 K34
Pages
  • 497-525
Version
  • 1
Volume
  • 15