This aims to provide a perspective on the ideal tax system, using insights from optimal-tax theory supplemented with empirical evidence. These insights are applied to actual policy questions regarding the progressiveness of the labor-income tax, in-work tax credits, the design of the...

We investigate competition for FDI within a region when a foreign multinational firm can profitably exploit differences in statutory corporate tax rates by shifting taxable profits to lower-tax jurisdictions. In such a framework we show that targeted tax competition may lead to higher welfare...

This essay critically revisits the roles and influences of tax havens in the world economy. It combines various messages of available studies in one scheme, and uses various data sources to document regularities regarding multinational firms, financial assets, and other relevant information for...

This paper analyzes effects of an equalization tax on the decisions of a multinational company. An equalization tax is an extra corporation tax on dividend distributions to ensure that the underlying profit of a dividend has borne a tax in the corporate sector equal to the imputation credit...

We analyze Auerbach´s (1991) proposal of a retrospective capital gains tax, which is equivalent to an accrual tax on an ex ante basis. Using a continuous-time model with stochastic interest rates and serially correlated asset returns, we prove that such an equivalence still holds. This means...

This paper considers behavioural responses of companies´ declared profits to changes in profit tax rates. Using microsimulation modelling based on the UK corporate tax system, it argues that the cyclical volatility of firms´ gross profits and off-setting deductions are potentially important...

It is often argued that without tax-exemptions for the production sector environmental tax reforms substantially reduce profits and endanger employment. We challenge this view and investigate the consequences of both a small and alarge tax reform in the case of a monopoly. We show that these...

This article compares an ACE system with a CBIT system in an open economy. Using a real-option approach, we show that, if a firm can decide when to invest, a trade-off is found. According to traditional wisdom, a high-income firm investing in an ACE system faces a heavier tax burden at each...

We analyze the influence of tax progression on optimal investment policy and its value. We show that three possible optimal regimes arise, depending on thenature of the tax policy. If the exogenously given progression threshold lies between the optimal capital stocks in the case of higher and...

In a noncompetitive environment, a tax increase leads to a higher fraction of sales smuggled under pure ad valorem taxation, but the effect is ambiguous under a purely specific tax. Under a mixed tax regime, a tax rise increases the fraction of sales smuggled when the balance of the two types of...