November 1, 2000

How mobile is capital within the European Union?

Kapitaal vlucht van EU landen met een hoge, naar EU landen met een lage effectieve vennootschapsbelastingvoet

Press release
Binnen de Europese Unie houden investeerders relatief sterk rekening met internationale verschillen in belasting. Zo vlucht kapitaal gemakkelijk van EU-landen met een hoge, naar EU-landen met een relatief lage effectieve vennootschapsbelastingvoet. Wereldwijd vindt deze vorm van legale belastingontwijking ook plaats, echter in mindere mate.

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Therefore, there is a case for coordination of EU capital income taxes, provided that capital is mobile within the EU. We measure how the international allocation of capital depends on taxation by examining the relation between FDI positions and effective corporate income tax rates.

An EU country typically increases its FDI position in another EU country by approximately four percent if the latter decreases its effective corporate income tax rate by one percentage point relative to the EU mean. This conditionally support the recent efforts of the EU to coordinate capital income taxation. The benefits or costs of tax coordination ultimately depend, however, on whether one views the government as a social welfare maximising agent or tax revenue maximising leviathan.

Authors

Joeri Gorter
A. Parikh