We estimate the elasticity of corporate taxable income with respect to the statutory corporation tax rate using the population of UK corporation tax returns. We analyze bunching in the distribution of taxable income at kinks in the marginal rate schedule. We decompose this elasticity into an elasticity of total income with respect to the corporation tax rate, and an elasticity of the share of income taken as profit with respect to the difference between the personal and corporate tax rates. This implies a marginal deadweight cost at the £10,000 kink of around 29 percent of tax revenue. (JEL G32, H24, H25, L25)
SummaryUnder the current system of separate accounting, tax-motivated international profit shifting results in misalignment of profits and real economic activity. While the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Base Erosion and Profit Shifting initiative aims to measure and curtail this, critics claim serious progress is only possible with greater emphasis on formulary apportionment methods (Picciotto 2013), or other methods outside the present international tax architecture (IMF 2014). In this paper we use the leading global database of company balance sheets to compare the distribution of profit and potential apportionment factors. Although data coverage is problematic for developing countries, we find that apportioning profit according to measures of actual economic activity would result in a major redistribution of the tax base at the expense of a particular group of jurisdictions, and in most cases towards the lower-income countries in the sample. International loss consolidation facilitated by a global switch to unitary taxation would reduce the overall tax base by around 12 per cent.
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