Is There Money on the Table? Evidence on the Magnitude of Profit Shifting in the Extractive Industries

Sebastian Beer

No 2021/009, IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund

Abstract: Profit shifting remains a key concern in international tax system debate, but discussions are largely based on aggregate estimates, with less attention paid to individual sectors. Drawing on a novel dataset, we quantify tax avoidance risks in the extractive industries, a sector which is revenue critical for many developing economies. We find that a one percentage point increase in the domestic corporate tax rate has historically reduced sectoral profits by slightly over 3 percent; and the response tends to be more pronounced among mining than among hydrocarbon firms. There is only weak evidence transfer pricing rules contain tax minimization efforts of MNEs in our sample, but interest limitation rules (e.g., thin capitalization or earnings based rules) do reduce the observable extent of profit shifting. Our findings highlight the challenge of taxing income in the natural resource sector and suggest how fiscal regime design might be strengthened.

Keywords: International Corporate Taxation; Multinational Firms; Mining; Petroleum; Profit Shifting; Debt; Interest Limitations; Transfer Pricing; Production Sharing Agreements; WP; tax rate differential; taxable profits; CIT base; profits increase; representative firm (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30
Date: 2021-01-15
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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