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Corporation tax is on a downward trend, says OECD report www.theguardian.com
Eight of the world’s top industrialised nations lowered their corporation tax rates last year or announced plans to do so, according to a leading thinktank.
In the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s annual report on tax changes around the world, published on Thursday, the thinktank said Japan, Spain, Israel, Norway and Estonia had all lowered their tax rates for corporate profits in 2015. Meanwhile, future reductions had been announced by Italy, France and the UK, while Japan planned further cuts.
The OECD said the 2015 downward trend was accelerating as governments around the world emerged from the aftermath of the 2008 banking crisis and began using their tax policies more aggressively to chase GDP growth.
In particular, countries were vying with one another to offer foreign multinationals the most attractive tax rate in an effort to attract investment. “With regard to corporate income tax, rate reductions had generally slowed down after the crisis but seem to be picking up again,” the report said. “The trend seems to be gaining renewed momentum.”
The OECD findings may make uncomfortable reading for many politicians who have recently claimed to be leading the battle to make big global corporations pay more tax. A string of revelations about ultra-low tax bills among many of the world’s largest businesses – including Apple, Vodafone, Starbucks and Google – has led to widespread public anger. The OECD suggested cuts in corporation tax were being partially offset by rises in other taxes such as VAT, fuel and car tax.
Many tax justice and inequality campaigners have pointed out this trend hits poorer individuals hardest. The Tax Justice Network notes that it “redistributes wealth upwards”.
“Governments make up shortfalls [from corporation tax cuts] by levying higher taxes on other, less wealthy sections of society, or by cutting back on essential public services, so tax ‘competition’ boosts inequality and deprivation,” the Tax Justice Network has said.
OECD experts said lower corporation tax rates may indeed boost GDP but were also likely to heap pressure on other nations to follow suit and lower the rate of tax they levied on corporate profits. Critics of tax competition have called this a “race to the bottom”.
OECD corporation tax rates (%) since 2000 Photograph: OECD
The OECD said the average tax rate for corporate profits had declined from 32% in 2000 to 26% in 2008. The rate of decline then slowed – the average reaching 25% last year – but now looks to be quickening once again, the OECD said.
Meanwhile, the average rate of VAT – a tax that falls hardest on the poor – has climbed from 17.6% in 2008 to a record high of 19.2% at the start of 2015.
The UK was not among those OECD countries to have reduced corporation tax rates last year, but the then chancellor, George Osborne, did announce that the rate would steadily fall to 17% by 2020. It had been 28% when Osborne took office in 2010. He has repeatedly boasted of giving the UK the most competitive corporation tax rate of any G20 nation.
Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, OECD tax experts insisted world leaders were increasingly aware of concerns that aggressive tax competition was leading to wider income and wealth inequality.
“In the past, a very big focus of tax policy has been on achieving revenue collection … supporting [GDP] growth,” said David Bradbury, the thinktank’s head of tax policy and statistics.
“People have often left the question of income inequality – redistribution – to other levers of policy, particularly government spending. But tax policy has a critical role to play also in addressing those important questions of inequality.”
Earlier this month, leaders attending the G20 summit in Hangzhou asked the OECD and the International Monetary Fund to explore ways of using tax reforms to better foster GDP growth while at the same time curbing income and wealth inequalities.
While progressive taxes rates for personal and corporate income are in decline in many countries, OECD experts said there were other options for governments to explore. These include wealth taxes and measures to closing tax breaks on mortgage expenditure and pension contributions – incentives that largely benefit better-off individuals.
More broadly, the OECD said that industrialised nations wishing to increase tax revenue could do much more to tax property and carbon-heavy fuels such as coal. “The potential to raise revenues in an efficient way through property taxes, especially through recurrent taxes on residential property, is not being fully exploited,” the report concluded, although it found the highest property taxes were in the UK.
Meanwhile, OECD figures showed that countries were failing to align those taxes that have an impact on the environment with international ambitions to move to a low-carbon economy. In particular, road transport was heavily taxed despite the fact that other sectors make up 85% of CO2 emissions.
“The potential for harnessing the power of taxes as environmental policy instruments is large,” the report said, noting that there were currently “particularly low taxes on some of the most environmentally harmful fuels, notably coal”.
Published Date:2016-09-23
