The Taxation of Foreign Profits: A Unified View

33 Pages Posted: 12 Mar 2015

See all articles by Michael P. Devereux

Michael P. Devereux

Centre for Business Taxation, Oxford University; CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute); Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS); Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); University of Oxford - Said Business School; University of Oxford - Said Business School

Clemens Fuest

ifo Institute – Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich; Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich; Center for Economic Studies (CES)

Ben Lockwood

University of Warwick - Department of Economics; Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute)

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Date Written: February 28, 2015

Abstract

This paper synthesizes and extends the literature on the taxation of foreign source income in a framework that covers both greenfield and acquisition investment, and a general constraint linking investment at home and abroad for the multinational by introducing a cost of adjustment for the mobile factor. Unless the cost of adjustment is zero, the domestic tax on foreign-source income should always be set to ensure the optimal allocation of the mobile factor between domestic and foreign assets and should follow the classical rules in the literature; national optimality requires the deduction rule, and global optimality requires the credit rule. Only in the zero-cost case does exemption become optimal. Allowances can be set so as to ensure that domestic and foreign asset purchases are undistorted by the tax system: this requires a cash-flow tax on domestic investment in the greenfield case, and a cross-border cash flow tax on foreign investment in both cases. These basic results extend to various extensions of the model, notably (i) when a profit-shifting motive is present; (ii) to some extent, when a corporate income tax is in place. The introduction of tax administration costs into the model can explain the empirical trend towards use of the exemption regime.

Keywords: corporate taxation, multinational firms, repatriation

JEL Classification: H250, F230

Suggested Citation

Devereux, Michael P. and Fuest, Clemens and Lockwood, Ben, The Taxation of Foreign Profits: A Unified View (February 28, 2015). CESifo Working Paper Series No. 5231, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2576641 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2576641

Michael P. Devereux

Centre for Business Taxation, Oxford University ( email )

Said Business School
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CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute)

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Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) ( email )

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London, WC1E 7AE
United Kingdom

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

London
United Kingdom

University of Oxford - Said Business School ( email )

Park End Street
Oxford, OX1 1HP
Great Britain

University of Oxford - Said Business School ( email )

Park End Street
Oxford, OX1 1HP
Great Britain

Clemens Fuest

ifo Institute – Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich ( email )

Poschinger Str. 5
Munich, DE 81679
Germany
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Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich ( email )

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Munich, DE 80539
Germany

Center for Economic Studies (CES) ( email )

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Munich, DE 80539
Germany
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Ben Lockwood (Contact Author)

University of Warwick - Department of Economics ( email )

Coventry CV4 7AL
United Kingdom
+44 24 7652 8906 (Phone)
+44 24 7657 2548 (Fax)

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

London
United Kingdom

CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute)

Poschinger Str. 5
Munich, DE-81679
Germany

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