Report Of The Technical Committee On Business Taxation

This paper sets out the data sources and the approach underlying the estimates of government revenues from corporate taxes and business taxes presented in chapter 2 of the "Report of the Technical Committee on Business Taxation." The paper also expands the Report's summary presentation of the evolution of taxes collected from business in several ways. The paper first describes the estimates of the snapshot of business shares of the major tax categories for 1995, then the estimates of corporate income and capital taxes from 1950 to 1995, and of adjusted corporate profits. Finally, it describes the estimates of the components of other business taxes from 1950 to 1995 and of net business value-added. The text provides a general discussion of the approaches used in development of the estimates, and their rationales, and also draws attention to certain key characteristics of the estimates when considered a more disaggregated level than in the Report. The underlying estimates themselves, and detailed notes on data sources and approach, are contained in appendices.

The report deals with selected aspects of the tax treatment of foreign-source income in Canada, Australia, France, Germany and the US. It emphasizes the structural features of each country's tax system with respect to the taxation of foreign-source income derived by resident corporations. In particular, the report focuses on the taxation of dividends from foreign corporations, controlled foreign corporation (CFC) rules, foreign investment funds rules, and source of income and expense rules.