IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/b/zbw/zewexp/148155.html
   My bibliography  Save this book

The impact of tax planning on forward-looking effective tax rates

Author

Listed:
  • Spengel, Christoph
  • Heckemeyer, Jost Henrich
  • Nusser, Hannah
  • Klar, Oliver
  • Streif, Frank

Abstract

[Introduction] The tax planning strategies of multinational corporations have been a key issue on the international policy agenda for some years now. Both the European Commission and the OECD are currently working on anti-avoidance measures to curb international profit shifting of multinational companies. These initiatives against so-called aggressive tax planning have mainly been pushed by anecdotal evidence on tax avoidance strategies of some of the currently most valuable and fast growing multinational companies such as Google, Apple, and Ikea. These companies use tax planning structures reducing the effective tax burden on foreign income to close to zero. In addition to this anecdotal evidence, there is empirical evidence on profit shifting activities of multinational companies. Several studies suggest that both pre-tax profits and leverage are sensitive to statutory tax rate differentials. The purpose of this study is to provide a more general insight into the impact of representative tax planning strategies on forward-looking effective tax rates considering cross-border investments between the EU member states and the US. We thereby complement the report on aggressive tax planning structures by Ramboll Management Consulting and Corit Advisory prepared for the European Commission with information on the actual tax saving effects of typical tax planning strategies. As in the annually updated report on effective tax rates conducted by ZEW, we apply the Devereux/Griffith model to calculate cost of capital (CoC) and effective average tax rates (EATR). This allows us to compare the results for different tax planning structures to the results for direct cross-border investments known from the annual updates. The report is structured as follows: In Section 2, we briefly describe the Devereux/Griffith model applied in this study to compute CoC and EATR. We also list the underlying economic assumptions of the model. Section 3 explains the design of the study. It gives an overview of the different tax planning strategies and countries considered in this report and summarizes relevant tax parameters. In Section 4, we explain which adaptions to the basic cross-border formula of the Devereux/Griffith model have been made to arrive at the results for CoC and EATR for the different tax planning strategies. Section 5 summarizes the baseline results that present the most tax-efficient way for a multinational parent company to directly finance an investment in a wholly-owned foreign subsidiary. Section 6 discusses the effective tax levels computed for all considered tax planning strategies and compares them to the baseline results. In Section 7, we refer to potential effects of anti-avoidance measures on our results. Finally, Section 8 concludes.

Suggested Citation

  • Spengel, Christoph & Heckemeyer, Jost Henrich & Nusser, Hannah & Klar, Oliver & Streif, Frank, 2016. "The impact of tax planning on forward-looking effective tax rates," ZEW Expertises, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research, volume 64, number 148155.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:zewexp:148155
    DOI: 10.2778/584818
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/148155/1/872162370.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.2778/584818?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), 2016. "The Effects of Tax Reforms to Address the Debt-Equity Bias on the Cost of Capital and on Effective Tax Rates," Taxation Papers 65, Directorate General Taxation and Customs Union, European Commission.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. Spengel, Christoph & Heckemeyer, Jost Henrich & Bräutigam, Rainer & Nicolay, Katharina & Klar, Oliver & Stutzenberger, Kathrin, 2016. "The effects of tax reforms to address the debt-equity bias on the cost of capital and on effective tax rates," ZEW Expertises, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research, volume 65, number 148156.
    5. Bräutigam, Rainer & Spengel, Christoph & Streif, Frank, 2015. "Decline of CFC rules and rise of IP boxes: How the ECJ affects tax competition and economic distortions in Europe," ZEW Discussion Papers 15-055, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    6. 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.
    7. Heckemeyer, Jost H. & Overesch, Michael, 2013. "Multinationals' profit response to tax differentials: Effect size and shifting channels," ZEW Discussion Papers 13-045, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    8. Ernesto Zangari, 2014. "Addressing the Debt Bias: A Comparison between the Belgian and the Italian ACE Systems," Taxation Papers 44, Directorate General Taxation and Customs Union, European Commission.
    9. European Commission, 2001. "Annex to Company Taxation in the Internal Market," Taxation Studies 0006, Directorate General Taxation and Customs Union, European Commission.
    10. Fuest, Clemens & Spengel, Christoph & Finke, Katharina & Heckemeyer, Jost H. & Nusser, Hannah, 2013. "Profit shifting and 'aggressive' tax planning by multinational firms: Issues and options for reform," ZEW Discussion Papers 13-078, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    11. James R. Hines & Eric M. Rice, 1994. "Fiscal Paradise: Foreign Tax Havens and American Business," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(1), pages 149-182.
    12. European Commission, 2001. "Company Taxation in the Internal Market," Taxation Studies 0005, Directorate General Taxation and Customs Union, European Commission.
    13. Buettner, Thiess & Overesch, Michael & Schreiber, Ulrich & Wamser, Georg, 2012. "The impact of thin-capitalization rules on the capital structure of multinational firms," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(11), pages 930-938.
    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. 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.
    2. Elias Steinmüller & Georg U. Thunecke & Georg Wamser, 2019. "Corporate income taxes around the world: a survey on forward-looking tax measures and two applications," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 26(2), pages 418-456, April.

    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. Finér, Lauri & Ylönen, Matti, 2017. "Tax-driven wealth chains: A multiple case study of tax avoidance in the finnish mining sector," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 53-81.
    2. Ruud Mooij & Li Liu, 2020. "At a Cost: The Real Effects of Transfer Pricing Regulations," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 68(1), pages 268-306, March.
    3. Bofinger, Peter & Schnabel, Isabel & Feld, Lars P. & Schmidt, Christoph M. & Wieland, Volker, 2014. "Mehr Vertrauen in Marktprozesse. Jahresgutachten 2014/15 [More confidence in market processes. Annual Report 2014/15]," Annual Economic Reports / Jahresgutachten, German Council of Economic Experts / Sachverständigenrat zur Begutachtung der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung, volume 127, number 201415.
    4. Spengel, Christoph & Heinemann, Friedrich & Olbert, Marcel & Pfeiffer, Olena & Schwab, Thomas & Stutzenberger, Kathrin, 2018. "Analysis of US corporate tax reform proposals and their effects for Europe and Germany. Final report: Update 2018," ZEW Expertises, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research, number 181905.
    5. Peter Egger & Michael Stimmelmayr, 2017. "Taxation and the Multinational Firm," CESifo Working Paper Series 6384, CESifo.
    6. Evers, Maria Theresia & Meier, Ina & Spengel, Christoph, 2017. "Country-by-country reporting: Tension between transparency and tax planning," ZEW Discussion Papers 17-008, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    7. Ulrich Schreiber, 2015. "Investitionseffekte des BEPS Aktionsplans der OECD," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 67(1), pages 102-127, February.
    8. Sabine Schenkelberg, 2020. "The Cadbury Schweppes judgment and its implications on profit shifting activities within Europe," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 27(1), pages 1-31, February.
    9. Keller, Sara & Schanz, Deborah, 2013. "Measuring tax attractiveness across countries," arqus Discussion Papers in Quantitative Tax Research 143, arqus - Arbeitskreis Quantitative Steuerlehre.
    10. 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).
    11. 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).
    12. Jarkko Harju & Ilpo Kauppinen & Olli Ropponen, 2017. "Firm Responses to an Interest Barrier: Empirical Evidence," EconPol Working Paper 3, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    13. 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.
    14. V. Vicard, 2015. "Profit shifting through transfer pricing: evidence from French firm level trade data," Working papers 555, Banque de France.
    15. Dudar, Olena & Spengel, Christoph & Voget, Johannes, 2015. "The impact of taxes on bilateral royalty flows," ZEW Discussion Papers 15-052, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    16. María T. Álvarez-Martínez & Salvador Barrios & Diego d'Andria & Maria Gesualdo & Gaetan Nicodeme & Jonathan Pycroft, 2022. "How large is the corporate tax base erosion and profit shifting? A general equilibrium approach," Economic Systems Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(2), pages 167-198, April.
    17. 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).
    18. 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.
    19. Ropponen, Olli, 2021. "Interest Limitation Rules and Business Cycles: Empirical Evidence," ETLA Working Papers 90, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.
    20. Niels Johannesen & Thomas Tørsløv & Ludvig Wier, 0. "Are Less Developed Countries More Exposed to Multinational Tax Avoidance? Method and Evidence from Micro-Data," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 34(3), pages 790-809.

    More about this item

    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:zbw:zewexp:148155. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zemande.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.