How Countervailing Measures Could Be Used to Limit Strategic Tax Competition. An International Overview

The paper focuses on possible policy responses that imply forms of multilateral governance to address tax competition that go beyond the current bilateralisin of tax treaties. After clarifications on the nature of countervailing measures in the area of direct taxation, the paper develops a discussion of the impacts of tax competition on the global and local level and an inquiry about the shift from value creation to global taxation of multinational enterprises (MNEs), minimum standards for the taxation of MNEs in light of the fact that these entities fragment their tax liabilities across different territorial jurisdictions while their profits are truly planetary. The article then extends to issues of institutional design and develops an analysis of potential avenues for promoting multilateral policies aiming at the establishment of defensive coalitions of Governments again the impacts of tax competition.