This paper discusses the issue of profit shifting and "aggressive" tax planning by multinational firms. The paper makes two contributions. First, it provides some background information to the debate by giving a brief overview of existing empirical studies on profit shifting and by describing...

This paper examines the Small Business Entities (SBE) income tax accounting concessions (for prepaid expenses; depreciating assets and trading stock ) that replaced the former Simplified Tax System (STS) concessions on 1 July 2007. Given that the former STS concessions have been subject to much...

One of the fundamental questions in business tax reform is whether to allow firms to immediately expense investments or require economic cost recovery. The conventional view is that expensing would generate stronger growth effects holding revenues constant. This view is rooted in traditional...

This paper provides an assessment of the potential consequences for average corporate tax rates that would result from implementation of a Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB) as proposed by the European Commission, and of possible methods for achieving an EU-wide loss-offset for...

Governments are increasingly turning to behavioral economics to inform policy design in areas like health care, the environment, and financial decision-making. Research shows that small behavioral interventions, referred to as “nudges,” often produce significant responses at a low cost. The...

We investigate whether and how the federal judiciary affects corporate tax planning. We find that firms engage in less aggressive tax planning when Circuit Court and Tax Court judges are more liberal. This effect is economically significant and robust across various measures of tax planning. We...

In 2018, the European Council and the UK and Spanish governments each proposed to introduce a Digital Services Tax (DST), to be levied on the revenue of large digital platform companies earned from advertising, online intermediation, and/or the transmission of data. We offer a rationalization of...