The political economy of corporate tax harmonization - why do European politicians (dis)like minimum taxes?

"Setting minimum tax rates is a well discussed way of mitigating pressure from tax competition. This paper investigates which motives shape the support for a minimum corporate tax among politicians. We make use of a unique data base: a survey among members of the European parliament. Our result...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Osterloh, Steffen, Heinemann, Friedrich
Institution:ETUI-European Trade Union Institute
Format: TEXT
Language:English
Published: Mannheim 2008
ZEW
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.labourline.org/KENTIKA-19188867124919060499-The-political-economy-of-corpo.htm
Description
Summary:"Setting minimum tax rates is a well discussed way of mitigating pressure from tax competition. This paper investigates which motives shape the support for a minimum corporate tax among politicians. We make use of a unique data base: a survey among members of the European parliament. Our results confirm that the politicians' ideology as well as individual characteristics such as educational background exert a major in uence. Moreover, several predictions regarding national interests are derived from various standard tax competition models. These hypotheses are partly supported by the data; in particular, different national preferences for social equality shape the support. A comparison with survey results from the German Bundestag reveals that German politicians on the national level do not show different preferences towards tax rate harmonization. "
Physical Description:40 p.
Digital