Corporate Tax Reform: From Income to Cash Flow Taxes

Benjamin Carton, Emilio Fernández Corugedo and Benjamin Hunt

No 2019/013, IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund

Abstract: This paper uses a multi-region, forward-looking, DSGE model to estimate the macroeconomic impact of a tax reform that replaces a corporate income tax (CIT) with a destination-based cash-flow tax (DBCFT). Two key channels are at play. The first channel is the shift from an income tax to a cash-flow tax. This channel induces the corporate sector to invest more, boosting long-run potential output, GDP and consumption, but crowding out consumption in the short run as households save to build up the capital stock. The second channel is the shift from a taxable base that comprises domestic and foreign revenues, to one where only domestic revenues enter. This leads to an appreciation of the currency to offset the competitiveness boost afforded by the tax and maintain domestic investment-saving equilibrium. The paper demonstrates that spillover effects from the tax reform are positive in the long run as other countries’ exports benefit from additional investment in the country undertaking the reform and other countries’ domestic demand benefits from improved terms of trade. The paper also shows that there are substantial benefits when all countries undertake the reform. Finally, the paper demonstrates that in the presence of financial frictions, corporate debt declines under the tax reform as firms are no longer able to deduct interest expenses from their profits. In this case, the tax shifting results in an increase in the corporate risk premia, a near-term decline in output, and a smaller long-run increase in GDP.

Keywords: WP; capital stock; exchange rate; export price; income tax; tax policy; business taxation; corporate leverage; dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models; macroeconomic interdependence; CIT reform; cash flow; cost of capital; open economy; DBCFT result; distortionary tax; tax reform experiment; return to capital; rate of return; shadow price; Corporate income tax; Corporate taxes; Financial frictions; Value-added tax; Cash-flow tax; Global (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34
Date: 2019-01-16
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dge and nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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