What the Baucus Plan Reveals About Tax Competition

5 Pages Posted: 12 Jan 2014

Date Written: December 23, 2013

Abstract

Conventional wisdom explains tax competition as an external constraint on lawmaking that can only be curbed through multinational cooperative efforts to eliminate beggar-thy-neighbor tax policies. But the international tax reform plan recently introduced by Senator Baucus squarely confronts this conventional wisdom and reveals some very disturbing observations about tax competition: that it is as much a supply-side as a demand-side problem (luring strategies require a supply of otherwise tax-favored capital), that governments have always had the power to counter this problem, and that accordingly, political will is the reason why tax competition has become the overwhelming force that it is today. The Baucus plan demonstrates that the US has been a major force in creating the conditions for global tax competition and implies that the US could, should it chose to, act unilaterally to put a stop to the practice.

Keywords: tax, tax competition, global tax policy, tax reform, cross-border, multinationals, international law

JEL Classification: H11, H21, H87, F02, F5, F53, F59, Z13, E63, H2, K33, K34, N4, P45

Suggested Citation

Christians, Allison, What the Baucus Plan Reveals About Tax Competition (December 23, 2013). Tax Notes International, Vol. 72, 2013, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2377445

Allison Christians (Contact Author)

McGill University - Faculty of Law ( email )

3644 Peel Street
Montreal H3A 1W9, Quebec H3A 1W9
Canada

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
146
Abstract Views
866
Rank
360,704
PlumX Metrics