MNEs' Incentives Under a Global Minimum Tax Based on Accounting Standards

Abstract

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has proposed a pillar two global minimum tax (GMT) for which the tax base is the jurisdiction-specific effective tax rate (ETR), an accounting metric calculated under the rules of accrual accounting. History has shown that when tax is imposed on accounting numbers, taxpayers often use the discretion available in accounting to manage their tax liability. This paper argues that the discretion that multinational enterprises (MNEs) can exercise within accounting rules to change their ETRs will be limited because increasing ETR (to reduce GMT) also reduces accounting income, which in turn could impose higher financial reporting costs on firms. Financial reporting costs are the costs to firms of reporting lower accounting income, and could include higher borrowing costs or more restrictive covenants imposed by lenders. Firms generally prefer to report sustainable net incomes with a steady growth rate to impress their capital market stakeholders. Lower sustainable accounting income can also adversely impact a firm's stock price through the price-earnings ratio. While planning opportunities available to MNEs to avoid the GMT are not limited to shifting accounting profits across jurisdictions, the alternative of shifting factors of production is likely to be more complex and more expensive to implement, and is likely to remove some of the first-order income tax savings from locating intangible factors of production in low-tax jurisdictions. Avoiding GMT at the affiliate level by inflating ETRs could therefore conflict with firms' overarching objectives of maximizing reported earnings and stock prices. These objectives are also currently aligned with established executive compensation structures that motivate management to increase firms' stock prices.