IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nbb/ecrart/y2007mjuneiip61-75.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Recent trends in corporate income tax

Author

Listed:
  • K. Van Cauter

    (National Bank of Belgium, Research Department)

  • L. Van Meensel

    (National Bank of Belgium, Research Department)

Abstract

The article describes the recent international developments regarding the corporate income tax and the way in which the Belgian government is trying to respond. For this purpose, it begins by discussing the various indicators which measure the tax burden on corporate profits. Next, it illustrates the trend towards declining statutory corporate tax rates throughout Europe in the last two decades. It is highly likely that the downward trend in nominal rates will persist in the near future. But these nominal rate cuts seem to have been accompanied by an at least equivalent expansion of the tax base, so that government revenues generated by the corporate income tax have actually increased overall. Belgium is following the international trend towards lower nominal rates and a wider tax base. The corporate income tax reform which took effect on 1 January 2003 aimed to eliminate the difference between the Belgian nominal rate and the EU-15 average. The most recent reform introduced the venture capital allowance from the 2007 tax year. This innovative measure reduces the discrimination between the tax treatment of equity capital and borrowings. The differential between the Belgian rate and the EU average has however since 2003 widened again to around 4 to 5 percentages points and will – in the absence of new measures – probably continue to increase in the near future. Finally, the article focuses on the European coordination of corporate income tax. The existence of twenty-seven different corporate income tax systems in the EU entails substantial cost for multinationals. At the same time, there is the fear that tax competition may erode the tax proceeds. Both the EC and a number of committees of experts have therefore published reports in the recent decades, proposing a high degree of corporate income tax harmonisation. So far, these initiatives have not succeeded. More specific initiatives, such as directives aiming to abolish tax distortions in the case of cross-border activities and measures to combat harmful competition have been more successful. The EC is now concentrating on achieving a common consolidated tax base for multinationals.

Suggested Citation

  • K. Van Cauter & L. Van Meensel, 2007. "Recent trends in corporate income tax," Economic Review, National Bank of Belgium, issue i, pages 61-75, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbb:ecrart:y:2007:m:june:i:i:p:61-75
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nbb.be/en/articles/recent-trends-corporate-income-tax-0
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Devereux, Michael P & Griffith, Rachel, 2003. "Evaluating Tax Policy for Location Decisions," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 10(2), pages 107-126, March.
    2. Wolfgang Eggert & Andreas Haufler, 2006. "Company-Tax Coordination cum Tax-Rate Competition in the European Union," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 62(4), pages 579-601, December.
    3. Christian Valenduc, 2004. "Corporate income tax and the taxation of income from capital:Some evidence from the past reforms and the present debate on corporate income taxation in Belgium," Taxation Papers 6, Directorate General Taxation and Customs Union, European Commission, revised Dec 2004.
    4. Huizinga, Harry & Laeven, Luc, 2008. "International profit shifting within multinationals: A multi-country perspective," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(5-6), pages 1164-1182, June.
    5. Nicodeme, Gaetan, 2006. "Corporate Tax Competition and Coordination in the European Union: What do we know? Where do we stand?," MPRA Paper 107, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Ruud A. de Mooij & Sjef Ederveen, 2006. "What a difference does it make? Understanding the empirical literature on taxation and international capital flows," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 261, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. B. Eugène & P. Bisciari & M. Nautet & P. Stinglhamber & L. Van Meensel, 2013. "Trends in tax systems in the EU," Economic Review, National Bank of Belgium, issue iii, pages 27-45, December.
    2. F. De Sloover & Y. Saks, 2018. "Is job polarisation accompanied by wage polarisation?," Economic Review, National Bank of Belgium, issue iii, pages 79-90, september.

    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. Cooper, Maggie & Nguyen, Quyen T.K., 2019. "Understanding the interaction of motivation and opportunity for tax planning inside US multinationals: A qualitative study," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 54(6), pages 1-1.
    2. Sebastian Beer & Mr. Alexander D Klemm & Ms. Thornton Matheson, 2018. "Tax Spillovers from US Corporate Income Tax Reform," IMF Working Papers 2018/166, International Monetary Fund.
    3. Athiphat Muthitacharoen, 2023. "Location Choice And Tax Responsiveness Of Foreign Multinationals: Evidence From Asean Countries," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 68(01), pages 217-242, March.
    4. Egger, Peter H. & Merlo, Valeria & Wamser, Georg, 2014. "Unobserved tax avoidance and the tax elasticity of FDI," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 1-18.
    5. Lourdes Jerez Barroso, 2011. "Base imponible y neutralidad del Impuesto de Sociedades: alternativas y experiencias," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 197(2), pages 113-146, June.
    6. Cooper, Maggie & Nguyen, Quyen T.K., 2020. "Multinational enterprises and corporate tax planning: A review of literature and suggestions for a future research agenda," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(3).
    7. Matthias Krapf & David Staubli, 2020. "The Corporate Elasticity of Taxable Income: Event Study Evidence from Switzerland," CESifo Working Paper Series 8715, CESifo.
    8. Nadine Riedel, 2011. "Taxing multi-nationals under union wage bargaining," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 18(4), pages 399-421, August.
    9. Lisa Evers & Helen Miller & Christoph Spengel, 2015. "Intellectual property box regimes: effective tax rates and tax policy considerations," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 22(3), pages 502-530, June.
    10. Norman Gemmell & Richard Kneller & Ismael Sanz, 2014. "The growth effects of tax rates in the OECD," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 47(4), pages 1217-1255, November.
    11. Michael Overesch & Georg Wamser, 2009. "Who Cares About Corporate Taxation? Asymmetric Tax Effects on Outbound FDI," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(12), pages 1657-1684, December.
    12. Barrios, Salvador & Huizinga, Harry & Laeven, Luc & Nicodème, Gaëtan, 2012. "International taxation and multinational firm location decisions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(11), pages 946-958.
    13. Egger, Peter H. & Strecker, Nora M. & Zoller-Rydzek, Benedikt, 2020. "Estimating bargaining-related tax advantages of multinational firms," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    14. Bilicka, Katarzyna & Qi, Yaxuan & Xing, Jing, 2022. "Real responses to anti-tax avoidance: Evidence from the UK Worldwide Debt Cap," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 214(C).
    15. European Commission, 2011. "Tax Reforms in EU Member States 2011: tax policy challenges for economic growth and fiscal sustainability," Taxation Papers 28, Directorate General Taxation and Customs Union, European Commission.
    16. Liliana Donath & Mariana Slavin, 2009. "Tax competition and foreign direct investments. Is there a connection?," Analele Stiintifice ale Universitatii "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" din Iasi - Stiinte Economice (1954-2015), Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, vol. 56, pages 117-132, November.
    17. Dominika Langenmayr & Rebecca Lester, 2013. "Taxation and corporate risk-taking," Working Papers 1316, Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation.
    18. Griffith, Rachel & O'Connell, Martin & Miller, Helen, 2011. "Corporate taxes and the location of intellectual property," CEPR Discussion Papers 8424, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. Aleksandra Riedl & Silvia Rocha-Akis, 2012. "How elastic are national corporate income tax bases in OECD countries? The role of domestic and foreign tax rates," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 45(2), pages 632-671, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    corporate tax; tax competition; EU tax coordination;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H25 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Business Taxes and Subsidies

    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:nbb:ecrart:y:2007:m:june:i:i:p:61-75. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bnbgvbe.html .

    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.