Corporate Tax Reform From Income To Cash Flow Taxes

This paper uses a multi-region, forward-looking, DSGE model to estimate the macroeconomic impact of a tax reform that replaces a corporate income tax (CIT) with a destination-based cash-flow tax (DBCFT). Two key channels are at play. The first channel is the shift from an income tax to a cash-flow tax. This channel induces the corporate sector to invest more, boosting long-run potential output, GDP and consumption, but crowding out consumption in the short run as households save to build up the capital stock. The second channel is the shift from a taxable base that comprises domestic and foreign revenues, to one where only domestic revenues enter. This leads to an appreciation of the currency to offset the competitiveness boost afforded by the tax and maintain domestic investment-saving equilibrium. The paper demonstrates that spillover effects from the tax reform are positive in the long run as other countries’ exports benefit from additional investment in the country undertaking the reform and other countries’ domestic demand benefits from improved terms of trade. The paper also shows that there are substantial benefits when all countries undertake the reform. Finally, the paper demonstrates that in the presence of financial frictions, corporate debt declines under the tax reform as firms are no longer able to deduct interest expenses from their profits. In this case, the tax shifting results in an increase in the corporate risk premia, a near-term decline in output, and a smaller long-run increase in GDP.

Cash flow taxes eliminate many of the problems of the corporate income tax, but they have significant administrative, transitional, and international problems, especially for developing countries.

Presents the recent trends in the taxation of corporate income in OECD countries, discusses the main drivers of corporate income tax reform and evaluates the gains of fundamental corporate tax reform.

Reform of the United States tax system has become a central political issue. Assessing Tax Reform is a concise, nontechnical book to help general readers and students understand the tax reform issues Congress is now debating. Henry Aaron and Harvey Galper lay out the major alternative proposals and analyze principles of taxation that can be used for judging them. They explore the issues surrounding a move to a comprehensive income tax, a cash-flow tax, and the value-added tax or other consumption-based taxes. They show the conflicts and opportunities resulting from large current government deficits and the move for tax reform. In addition to clarifying the problems that must be solved if large-scale, long-term reform is to be achieved, the authors describe alternative strategies for increasing revenues quickly. They also present their own program for a fair, efficient, and less complex tax structure. They conclude with an examination of the political pitfalls that continue to make any major improvements in the tax system hard to enact.

A review of current thinking on taxation which examines the changes in tax structure occurring in 11 countries, ranging from Indonesia and Mexico to Sweden and the United States. The book coincides with a trend towards tax reform which has taken hold in many developed and developing countries.