Article: GloBE Rules and Tax Competition

Abstract

This article studies foreseeable effects that a relatively comprehensive implementation of the Pillar 2 GloBE international effective minimum tax would have on international tax competition for investment. The discussion focuses on the perspective of countries that seek to attract foreign direct investment through their tax system. The paper shows that there was disagreement within the G20/OECD Inclusive Framework (IF) about the objective to curb international tax competition through a minimum tax. The reservations of some member countries have manifested themselves in the compromise design of the internationally agreed GloBE regime: With the carve-out for substance-based routine profits (the so-called SBIE), the IF abandoned the idea of setting a general floor for business tax competition at the agreed minimum rate. Instead, the SBIE establishes an effective 15 % floor only for the taxation of excess profits. Due to the additional possibility for source countries to collect any eventual minimum tax themselves through a qualified domestic minimum top-up tax (QDMTT), tax competition could theoretically continue unabated above this floor, implying the successive substitution of traditional business taxation with a domestic minimum tax mimicking the international GloBE top-up tax. Taking into account fiscal, legal, and political constraints, however, such an extreme scenario is unlikely to materialize. A broad GloBE implementation should therefore reduce incentives to use effective tax rate below 15 % (on overall profit) in order to attract high-margin investment. This notwithstanding, certain features of the GloBE Model Rules imply that some forms of business tax competition will continue as before or even gain in relative attractiveness. Due to its – albeit moderate – mitigating effects on business tax competition, GloBE might moreover lead to intensified competition for investment through other channels. GloBE, minimum tax, Pillar 2, competition.