This paper analyzes the association between tax complexity and foreign direct investments (FDI) based on the newly developed Tax Complexity Index (TCI) and its components. For a sample of 15,607 new foreign subsidiaries, we find no association between total tax complexity, as proxied by the TCI,...

This article comprehensively reviews Australia's corporate income tax complexity as faced by multinational corporations (MNCs) and compares it to the average of the remaining OECD countries. Building on unique survey data, I find that the Australian tax code is considerably more complex than the...

Thin capitalization rules limit firms f ability to deduct internal interest payments from taxable income, thereby restricting debt shifting activities of multinational firms. Since multinational firms can limit their tax liability in several ways, regulation of debt shifting may have an impact...

In 2009, the United Kingdom abolished the taxation of profits earned abroad and introduced a territorial tax system. Under the territorial system, firms have strong incentives to shift profits abroad. Using a difference-in-differences research design, we show that profits of UK subsidiaries in...

A key objective of many governments is to improve tax revenue mobilization. One way to achieve this is by improving tax compliance. This requires accurate knowledge of the tax gap, i.e. the difference between what should be paid and what is actually paid. Until now, tax gaps have been primarily...

Effective tax rates (ETRs) estimated from the balance sheet data of multinational corporations (MNCs) are useful for comparing MNCs' corporate income taxation across countries. In this paper we propose a new methodological approach to estimate ETRs as reliably and as for as many countries as...