Tax Competition: Not a Law of Nature but a Policy Decision

This was published this back in December but I neglected to post it here: "What the Baucus Plan Reveals About Tax Competition" is a brief (5 pages only!) analysis of US Senator Max Baucus' "Option Y" plan to reform the US corporate tax regime, by in effect imposing a global minimum corporate tax on US-based multinationals. I argue that the plan demonstrates that tax competition is not and has never been a law of nature operating outside of the control of individual governments, but instead it has always been the product of policy decisions that can be reversed by other policy decisions. Accordingly, political will is the reason why tax competition has become the overwhelming force that it is today.

I suggest that the Baucus plan demonstrates that the US has been a major force in creating the conditions for global tax competition and its language implies that the US could, should it chose to, act unilaterally to put a stop to the practice. As always, I welcome your comments.