IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/empiri/v51y2024i4d10.1007_s10663-024-09630-2.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The excess profits during COVID-19 and their tax revenue potential

Author

Listed:
  • Evgeniya Dubinina

    (Charles University)

  • Javier Garcia-Bernardo

    (Utrecht University)

  • Petr Janský

    (Charles University)

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic affected most companies’ profits negatively, but some companies did exceptionally well, recording excess profits during the pandemic. In this paper, we estimate the scale of the excess profits and the tax revenue potential of an excess profits tax, an additional tax levied by governments on companies’ excess profits. To estimate excess profits, we develop a trend-adjusted average earnings methodology. We apply the methodology to firm-level consolidated Orbis data to estimate that large multinational corporations with subsidiaries in the EU generated excess profits of $447 billion in 2020 (42% of their total profits in 2020). Using country-by-country reporting data, we estimate the excess profits arising from each EU member state and find that EU member states could together raise $6 billion with an excess profits tax of 10%.

Suggested Citation

  • Evgeniya Dubinina & Javier Garcia-Bernardo & Petr Janský, 2024. "The excess profits during COVID-19 and their tax revenue potential," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 51(4), pages 1001-1036, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:kap:empiri:v:51:y:2024:i:4:d:10.1007_s10663-024-09630-2
    DOI: 10.1007/s10663-024-09630-2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10663-024-09630-2
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10663-024-09630-2?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Clemens Fuest & Andreas Peichl & Sebastian Siegloch, 2018. "Do Higher Corporate Taxes Reduce Wages? Micro Evidence from Germany," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(2), pages 393-418, February.
    2. Céline Azémar & Rodolphe Desbordes & Paolo Melindi‐Ghidi & Jean‐Philippe Nicolaï, 2022. "Winners and losers of the COVID‐19 pandemic: An excess profits tax proposal," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 24(5), pages 1016-1038, October.
    3. Javier Garcia-Bernardo & Petr Janský & Thomas Tørsløv, 2021. "Multinational corporations and tax havens: evidence from country-by-country reporting," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 28(6), pages 1519-1561, December.
    4. Thomas Tørsløv & Ludvig Wier & Gabriel Zucman, 2023. "The Missing Profits of Nations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 90(3), pages 1499-1534.
    5. Sebastian Beer & Ruud de Mooij & Shafik Hebous & Michael Keen & Li Liu, 2023. "Exploring Residual Profit Allocation," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 15(1), pages 70-109, February.
    6. Vanda Almeida & Salvador Barrios & Michael Christl & Silvia Poli & Alberto Tumino & Wouter Wielen, 2021. "The impact of COVID-19 on households´ income in the EU," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 19(3), pages 413-431, September.
    7. Manon François & Carlos Oliveira & Bluebery Planterose & Gabriel Zucman, 2022. "A Modern Excess Profit Tax," Post-Print halshs-04103941, HAL.
    8. Olga Cantó & Francesco Figari & Carlo V. Fiorio & Sarah Kuypers & Sarah Marchal & Marina Romaguera‐de‐la‐Cruz & Iva V. Tasseva & Gerlinde Verbist, 2022. "Welfare Resilience at the Onset of COVID‐19 Pandemic in a Selection of European Countries: Impact on Public Finance and Household Incomes," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 68(2), pages 293-322, June.
    9. Ruud A. de Mooij, 2020. "Tax Policy and Inclusive Growth," IMF Working Papers 2020/271, International Monetary Fund.
    10. Cobham, Alex & Faccio, Tommaso & FitzGerald, Valpy, 2019. "Global inequalities in taxing rights: An early evaluation of the OECD tax reform proposals," SocArXiv j3p48, Center for Open Science.
    11. Clausing, Kimberly A., 2013. "Who Pays the Corporate Tax in a Global Economy?," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 66(1), pages 151-184, March.
    12. Valerie Cerra & Antonio Fatas & Sweta C Saxena, 2021. "Fighting the scarring effects of COVID-19 [Stagnation traps]," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 30(2), pages 459-466.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Garcia-Bernardo, Javier & Janský, Petr, 2024. "Profit shifting of multinational corporations worldwide," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).
    2. Javier Garcia-Bernardo & Petr Janský & Thomas Tørsløv, 2021. "Multinational corporations and tax havens: evidence from country-by-country reporting," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 28(6), pages 1519-1561, December.
    3. Tommaso Faccio & Roberto Iacono, 2022. "Corporate Income Taxation and Inequality: Review and Discussion of Issues Raised in The triumph of injustice—How the rich dodge taxes and how to make them pay (2019)," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 68(3), pages 819-829, September.
    4. Fuest, Clemens & Hugger, Felix & Neumeier, Florian, 2022. "Corporate profit shifting and the role of tax havens: Evidence from German country-by-country reporting data," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 194(C), pages 454-477.
    5. Johannesen, Niels, 2022. "The global minimum tax," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    6. David Rodríguez & H. Xavier Jara & Mariana Dondo & Cristina Arancibia & David Macas & Rebeca Riella & Joana Urraburu & Linda Llamas & Luis Huesca & Javier Torres & Rodrigo Chang, 2022. "The role of tax-benefit systems in protecting household incomes in Latin America during the COVID-19 pandemic," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2022-125, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    7. Michael Christl & Silvia Poli & Tine Hufkens & Andreas Peichl & Mattia Ricci, 2023. "The role of short-time work and discretionary policy measures in mitigating the effects of the COVID-19 crisis in Germany," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 30(4), pages 1107-1136, August.
    8. Bilicka, Katarzyna & Scur, Daniela, 2024. "Organizational capacity and profit shifting," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 238(C).
    9. Juan Carlos Suárez Serrato & Owen Zidar, 2016. "Who Benefits from State Corporate Tax Cuts? A Local Labor Markets Approach with Heterogeneous Firms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(9), pages 2582-2624, September.
    10. Müller, Raphael & Spengel, Christoph & Vay, Heiko, 2020. "On the determinants and effects of corporate tax transparency: Review of an emerging literature," ZEW Discussion Papers 20-063, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    11. John Freebairn, 2022. "Company Income Tax and Business Investment," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 55(3), pages 346-360, September.
    12. Clemens Fuest & Andreas Peichl & Sebastian Siegloch, 2018. "Do Higher Corporate Taxes Reduce Wages? Micro Evidence from Germany," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(2), pages 393-418, February.
    13. Katarzyna Bilicka & Evgeniya Dubinina & Petr Janský, 2022. "Fiscal consequences of corporate tax avoidance," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2022-97, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    14. Murphy Richard & Janský Petr & Shah Atul, 2019. "BEPS Policy Failure—The Case of EU Country-By-Country Reporting," Nordic Tax Journal, Sciendo, vol. 2019(1), pages 63-86, January.
    15. Clemens Fuest & Li Liu, 2015. "Does ownership affect the impact of taxes on firm behaviour? Evidence from China," Working Papers 1505, Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation.
    16. Li, Guangzhong & Wu, Cen & Zheng, Ying, 2020. "Employee protection and the tax sensitivity of wages: International evidence," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    17. Fuest, Clemens & Gründler, Klaus & Potrafke, Niklas & Ruthardt, Fabian, 2024. "Read my lips? Taxes and elections," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 236(C).
    18. Eichfelder, Sebastian & Hechtner, Frank & Hundsdoerfer, Jochen, 2015. "Formula apportionment: Factor allocation and tax avoidance," Discussion Papers 2015/30, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    19. Gary Cornwall & Marina Gindelsky, 2024. "Nowcasting Distributional National Accounts for the United States: A Machine Learning Approach," BEA Papers 0130, Bureau of Economic Analysis.
    20. Nelly Exbrayat & Benny Geys, 2016. "Economic Integration, Corporate Tax Incidence and Fiscal Compensation," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(11), pages 1792-1811, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Excess profit; Excess profits tax; COVID-19; Multinational corporation; European union;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H25 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Business Taxes and Subsidies
    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
    • L25 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Performance

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:empiri:v:51:y:2024:i:4:d:10.1007_s10663-024-09630-2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.