Multinational enterprises and corporate tax planning: A review of literature and suggestions for a future research agenda

Maggie Cooper and Quyen T.K. Nguyen

International Business Review, 2020, vol. 29, issue 3

Abstract: Corporate tax planning by the multinational enterprise (MNE), that is, the MNE’s ability to plan its tax affairs by using a multitude of strategies to reduce its tax bills legally, is a central research question in the literatures of international business, public economics, tax, finance, law and accounting. Underlying theoretical assumptions, approaches to empirical testing, profit shifting estimation strategies and findings are varied. Thus, it is important to conduct a critical literature review. In this paper, we offer new insights by studying the phenomenon from the international business (IB) perspective. We survey the academic literature on the MNE and corporate tax planning to examine the extent of knowledge on this topic and identify areas that we hope will stimulate interest among IB scholars for further research. We find materials across disciplines that are relevant to IB readers. We examine 120 articles in 51 scholarly journals and classic books published during the period 1966-2017. We identify the key mechanisms and the firm characteristics that may influence corporate tax planning. We suggest a research agenda where IB research can make clear contributions.

Keywords: Multinational enterprise (MNE) and international taxation; Corporate tax planning; Profit shifting; Income shifting; Tax avoidance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969593120300305
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:iburev:v:29:y:2020:i:3:s0969593120300305

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/133/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... me/133/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.ibusrev.2020.101692

Access Statistics for this article

International Business Review is currently edited by P. Ghauri

More articles in International Business Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().