The Effect Of The Tax Cuts And Jobs Act On Foreign Investment Of U S Multinational Corporations

This study examines the effect of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) on capital investment, labor investment, and the productivity of foreign subsidiaries of U.S. multinational corporations (MNCs). Proponents of the TCJA argue it decreased foreign investment by leveling the playing field between U.S. MNCs and foreign-owned corporations. However, policymakers are currently debating international tax reform, arguing that the TCJA incentivizes foreign investment. My study informs this debate by providing empirical evidence on the TCJA's effect on foreign investment and productivity. Using a difference-in-differences design, I find that after the TCJA, U.S.-owned foreign subsidiaries invest 13.1 percent less in capital and 1.3 percent less in labor relative to subsidiaries owned by non-U.S. MNCs. I also find these reductions are positively associated with subsidiary-level productivity, suggesting that the TCJA alleviates inefficiencies of the previous tax regime.

The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) sharply reduced effective corporate income tax rates on equity-financed US investment. This paper examines the reform’s impact on US inbound foreign direct investment (FDI) and investment in property, plant and equipment (PPE) by foreign-owned US companies. We first model effective marginal and average tax rates (EMTRs and EATRs) by country, industry, and method of finance, and then use those tax rates to calculate the tax semi-elasticities of inbound FDI and PPE investment. We find that both PPE investment and FDI financed with retained earnings responded positively to the TCJA reform, but FDI financed with new equity or debt did not. In country-level PPE regressions, inclusion of macroeconomic controls renders tax rate coefficients insignificant, suggesting that the increase in PPE investment after TCJA was driven by general economic growth. In regressions of FDI financed with retained earnings, however, tax coefficients were robust to inclusion of macroeconomic controls. As the literature predicts, EATRs have a greater impact on cross-border investment than EMTRs. Country-by-industry regressions showed a larger effect of taxes on PPE investment than aggregate country-level regressions, but industry-level tax rates appear to have no effect on earnings retention.

This paper assesses the landmark Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), from the perspective of both the U.S. itself and the wider world. The reform has many positive aspects including steps to broaden the base of, and reduce marginal rates under, the personal income tax (PIT), reduce distortions to investment and financing decisions, and mitigate outward profit shifting. But the TCJA has a large fiscal price tag and leaves significant uncertainty as to how the U.S. tax system will develop. The PIT changes could have better targeted relief at low earners, and there is scope to more fully address distortions in business taxation. The novel international provisions create a complex array of both positive and negative international spillovers, and have the potential to significantly reshape the wider international tax system.

This paper assesses the landmark Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), from the perspective of both the U.S. itself and the wider world. The reform has many positive aspects including steps to broaden the base of, and reduce marginal rates under, the personal income tax (PIT), reduce distortions to investment and financing decisions, and mitigate outward profit shifting. But the TCJA has a large fiscal price tag and leaves significant uncertainty as to how the U.S. tax system will develop. The PIT changes could have better targeted relief at low earners, and there is scope to more fully address distortions in business taxation. The novel international provisions create a complex array of both positive and negative international spillovers, and have the potential to significantly reshape the wider international tax system.

The CCH Answer Connect Guide on International Tax: Corporations is focused on the major changes made by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act to the international tax rules that will affect most multinational corporations. These changes will likely require the alteration of global tax strategies and, particularly, the need to revisit and revamp transfer pricing arrangements. Although, the TCJA did not contain any significant modifications to the U.S. transfer pricing rules, the reduction of the U.S. corporate tax rate and the introduction of a base erosion and ant-iabuse tax, global intangible low-taxed income and foreign derived intangible income require that all U.S. taxpayers with cross-border activities, i.e., both inbound and outbound, develop different tax structuring and supply chain alternatives to develop an optimal tax strategy

The growing integration of world markets for capital and goods, coupled with the rise of instantaneous worldwide communication, has made identification of corporations as "American," "Dutch," or "Japanese" extremely difficult. Yet tax treatment does depend of where a firm is chartered. And, as Borderline Case documents, there is little doubt that tax rules for firms doing business in several nationsâ€"firms that account for more than three-quarters of corporate R&D spending in the United Statesâ€"have substantial effects on corporate decisionmaking and, ultimately, U.S. competitiveness. This book explores the impact of the U.S. tax code and its incentives on the international activities of U.S.- and foreign-based firms: basic research outlays, expenditures on product and process development, and plant and equipment investment. The authors include industry experts from large multinational firms in technology and pharmaceuticals, academic researchers who have explored the quantitative impact of tax provisions on R&D, and tax policy analysts who have examined international tax rules in the broader context of tax reform. These experts look at how corporate investment and R&D are shaped by specific tax provisions, such as the definition of taxable income, relative tax burdens on domestic and foreign business, taxation of earnings repatriated to the United States, deductibility of expenses of worldwide operations, and U.S. corporate taxes relative to other countries. The volume explores prescriptions and prospects for tax reform and reviews major reform proposals and their implications for the behavior of multinational business.

There is no consensus on how strongly the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) has stimulated U.S. private fixed investment. Some argue that the business tax provisions spurred investment by cutting the cost of capital. Others see the TCJA primarily as a windfall for shareholders. We find that U.S. business investment since 2017 has grown strongly compared to pre-TCJA forecasts and that the overriding factor driving it has been the strength of expected aggregate demand. Investment has, so far, fallen short of predictions based on the postwar relation with tax cuts. Model simulations and firm-level data suggest that much of this weaker response reflects a lower sensitivity of investment to tax policy changes in the current environment of greater corporate market power. Economic policy uncertainty in 2018 played a relatively small role in dampening investment growth.