Foreword: The Regulation of Tax Competition: Rethinking Harmful Tax Competition in a Global Context

In 1996, the G7 Heads of State called for the OECD to pursue a multilateral approach to limit harmful tax practices. The OECD launched its report, Harmful Tax Competition—An Emerging Global Issue in 1998.1 The European Union also began to regulate tax competition among its members through the Primarolo Code of Conduct.2 The EU has continued to regulate tax concessions as state aid, with mixed success, since the 1990s, but only within the EU itself. The OECD Harmful Tax Competition project of the 1990s was a failure, largely because of dissent within its ranks. The report was rejected by Luxembourg and Switzerland, both countries that at the time offered low taxed opportunities benefiting from bank secrecy for investors. In 2001, the United States withdrew its support for the Harmful Tax Competition project at the commencement of the tenure of President Bush. The Harmful Tax Competition project and EU state aid developments emphasised the challenges facing rich countries in managing their tax bases arising from tax competition. Member states of the OECD and EU had become concerned when capital became increasingly mobile following the relaxation of currency controls in the 1980s. The question about whether, and in what circumstances, tax competition might be harmful or beneficial was hotly debated. The EU in releasing the Code of Conduct stated that fair competition could have positive effects, but that some kinds of tax competition were harmful if they would “unduly affect the location of business activity in the Community by being targeted merely at non-residents and by providing them with a more