IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/tpr/restat/v98y2016i4p713-727.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Multinational Firms and Tax Havens

Author

Listed:
  • Anna Gumpert

    (LMU Munich and CESifo)

  • James R. Hines Jr.

    (University of Michigan and NBER)

  • Monika Schnitzer

    (LMU Munich, CESifo, and CEPR)

Abstract

Multinational firms with operations in high-tax countries can benefit the most from reallocating taxable income to tax havens, though this is sufficiently difficult and costly that only 20.4% of German multinational firms have any tax haven affiliates. Among German manufacturing firms, a 1 percentage point higher foreign tax rate is associated with a 2.3% greater likelihood of owning a tax haven affiliate. This is consistent with tax avoidance incentives and contrasts with earlier evidence for U.S. firms. The relationship is less strong for firms in service industries, possibly reflecting the difficulty of reallocating taxable service income.

Suggested Citation

  • Anna Gumpert & James R. Hines Jr. & Monika Schnitzer, 2016. "Multinational Firms and Tax Havens," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 98(4), pages 713-727, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:restat:v:98:y:2016:i:4:p:713-727
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/REST_a_00591
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    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. Martin Ruf & Alfons J. Weichenrieder, 2012. "The taxation of passive foreign investment: lessons from German experience," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 45(4), pages 1504-1528, November.
    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. Niels Johannesen & Thomas Tørsløv & Ludvig Wier, 2016. "Are less developed countries more exposed to multinational tax avoidance? Method and evidence from micro-data," WIDER Working Paper Series 010, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    2. Franz Reiter & Dominika Langenmayr & Svea Holtmann, 2021. "Avoiding taxes: banks’ use of internal debt," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 28(3), pages 717-745, June.
    3. Stefan Bach, 2013. "Has German Business Income Taxation Raised too Little Revenue over the Last Decades?," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1303, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    4. Dominika Langenmayr & Franz Reiter, 2022. "Trading offshore: evidence on banks’ tax avoidance," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 124(3), pages 797-837, July.
    5. Spengel, Christoph & Fischer, Leonie & Stutzenberger, Kathrin, 2020. "Breaking borders? The European Court of Justice and internal market," ZEW Discussion Papers 20-059, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    6. Andreas Haufler & Mohammed Mardan & Dirk Schindler, 2016. "Optimal Policies against Profit Shifting: The Role of Controlled-Foreign-Company Rules," CESifo Working Paper Series 5850, CESifo.
    7. Jarle Møen & Dirk Schindler & Guttorm Schjelderup & Julia Tropina, 2011. "International Debt Shifting: Do Multinationals Shift Internal or External Debt?," Working Paper Series of the Department of Economics, University of Konstanz 2011-40, Department of Economics, University of Konstanz.
    8. Theresa Lohse & Nadine Riedel, 2013. "Do transfer pricing laws limit international income shifting? Evidence from European multinationals," Working Papers 1307, Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation.
    9. Schindler, Dirk & Schjelderup, Guttorm, 2008. "Multinationals, Minority Ownership and Tax-Efficient Financing Structures," Discussion Papers 2008/19, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Business and Management Science.
    10. repec:ces:ifodic:v:12:y:2015:i:4:p:19149984 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Harendt, Christoph, 2018. "Tax Influence on Financial Structures of M&As," VfS Annual Conference 2018 (Freiburg, Breisgau): Digital Economy 181552, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    12. Anna Gumpert & James R. Hines, Jr. & Monika Schnitzer, 2011. "The Use of Tax Havens in Exemption Regimes," NBER Working Papers 17644, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Mardan, Mohammed & Haufler, Andreas & Schindler, Dirk, 2014. "An Economic Rationale for Controlled-Foreign-Corporation Rules," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100405, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    14. Dhammika Dharmapala, 2014. "What Do We Know about Base Erosion and Profit Shifting? A Review of the Empirical Literature," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 35, pages 421-448, December.
    15. Egger, Peter H. & Wamser, Georg, 2015. "The impact of controlled foreign company legislation on real investments abroad. A multi-dimensional regression discontinuity design," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 77-91.
    16. Deborah Schanz & Andreas Dinkel & Sara Keller, 2017. "Tax attractiveness and the location of German-controlled subsidiaries," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 11(1), pages 251-297, January.
    17. Alfons J. Weichenrieder & Fangying Xu, 2019. "Are tax havens good? Implications of the crackdown on secrecy," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 127(2), pages 147-160, July.
    18. Hebous, Shafik & Ruf, Martin, 2017. "Evaluating the effects of ACE systems on multinational debt financing and investment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 131-149.
    19. Overesch Michael, 2016. "Steuervermeidung multinationaler Unternehmen: Die Befunde der empirischen Forschung," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, De Gruyter, vol. 17(2), pages 129-143, July.
    20. Sarah Clifford, 2017. "Taxing multinationals beyond borders: financial and locational responses to CFC rules," EPRU Working Paper Series 17-02, Economic Policy Research Unit (EPRU), University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    21. Tokola Antti, 2023. "Changes to the Finnish CFC Regime: What Were the Effects?*," Nordic Tax Journal, Sciendo, vol. 2023(1), pages 22-49, December.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H87 - Public Economics - - Miscellaneous Issues - - - International Fiscal Issues; International Public Goods
    • F23 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - Multinational Firms; International Business

    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:tpr:restat:v:98:y:2016:i:4:p:713-727. 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 MIT Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://direct.mit.edu/journals .

    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.