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Taxation of Foreign Profits with Heterogeneous Multinational Firms

Author

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  • Johannes Becker
Abstract
Recent empirical studies find that foreign direct investment (FDI) by a multinational firm is not associated with a reduction of the firm’s domestic activities. As it is often argued, this finding may imply that a country should not tax the firm’s foreign profit income since this reduces foreign investment without benefitting the domestic economy. The paper analyzes this argument using a model with heterogeneous multinational firms which serve a foreign market through exports or FDI. If a firm switches from exporting to FDI, domestic activity and tax payments may decrease, stay constant or even rise due to intra-firm trade. It turns out that, in all three cases, the optimal tax system implies full taxation after deduction of foreign tax payments. If the country accounts for the effects of its policy on the foreign price level, the case for taxing foreign income becomes even stronger. From a global point of view, the nationally optimal tax rate on repatriated foreign profits is inefficiently high. In contrast to the standard literature, the globally optimal tax system requires a lower tax rate than under the tax credit system which, under certain circumstances, may imply exempting foreign income from tax.

Suggested Citation

  • Johannes Becker, 2009. "Taxation of Foreign Profits with Heterogeneous Multinational Firms," CESifo Working Paper Series 2899, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_2899
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    Cited by:

    1. Matthew Cole, 2011. "Not all trade restrictions are created equally," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 147(3), pages 411-427, September.
    2. Johannes Becker & Clemens Fuest, 2011. "The taxation of foreign profits — The old view, the new view and a pragmatic view," Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics;Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), vol. 46(2), pages 92-97, March.
    3. Devereux, Michael P. & Fuest, Clemens & Lockwood, Ben, 2015. "The taxation of foreign profits: A unified view," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 83-97.
    4. Bond, Eric W. & Gresik, Thomas A., 2020. "Unilateral tax reform: Border adjusted taxes, cash flow taxes, and transfer pricing," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    5. Davies, Ronald B., 2013. "The silver lining of red tape," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 68-76.
    6. Johannes Becker, 2014. "Strategic Trade Policy through the Tax System," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(9), pages 1237-1246, September.
    7. Gresik, Thomas A., 2016. "Allowing firms to choose between separate accounting and formula apportionment taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 32-42.
    8. Sokolovskyi, Dmytro, 2019. "Cumulative analysis of dependence government tax behaviour on economy’s efficiency factors for totality the world countries," MPRA Paper 95827, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Tomoya Ida, 2014. "International tax competition with endogenous sequencing," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 21(2), pages 228-247, April.
    10. Sokolovskyi, Dmytro, 2018. "Macroeconomic indicators of determination on tax behaviour of OECD countries," MPRA Paper 84002, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    corporate taxation; foreign profits; multinational firms;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F23 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - Multinational Firms; International Business
    • H25 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Business Taxes and Subsidies

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