Capital Flight and Tax Competition after the First World War: The Political Economy of French Tax Cuts, 1922-1928

Using a wide variety of European archival sources, this article analyses the development of financial policies after the First World War. Through studying French politics it demonstrates how, following the significant increase in direct fiscal charges in order to cover the costs of the conflict, international fiscal competition exercised strong pressure on the tax systems of large European countries and, as a result, contributed over the course of the 1920s to a process of lowering the taxes levied on high revenues and fortunes. Significantly, the stabilisation of the French franc in 1926 was supported by a simultaneous alignment of the French tax system and neutral tax havens which in turn enabled the return of previously exported assets.