The taxation of domestic and foreign banking

Using bank level data for 80 countries in the 1988-1995 period, this paper examines taxation of domestic and foreign-owned banks. The profitability of foreign banks is found to rise relatively little with their domestic tax burden, perhaps reflecting the availability of foreign tax credits and profit shifting opportunities. The paper also examines whether domestic and foreign banks pay different amounts of domestic tax. Taxes paid by foreign banks are shown to rise relatively little with the local statutory tax. This evidence supports the hypothesis that foreign banks engage in relatively extensive profit shifting. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.