Maximum Capital, Minimum Tax: Enablers and Facilitators of Corporate Tax Minimization

This dissertation addresses the issue of corporate tax minimization. In reconceptualizing what tax minimization means, the thesis focuses on effective tax minimization, which includes tax planning by multinational corporations alongside the tax-lowering policies governments undertake. Together, tax planning and lower taxes explain the decrease in effective tax rates. This conceptualization opens up the broader question of how this comes about, and asks: how is corporate tax minimization enabled and facilitated?
Corporate tax minimization is enabled by governments, who, either to please powerful constituencies or to ’win’ in tax competition, offer lower tax rates to multinational corporations. By providing such concessions, governments have not only minimized tax but also opened up a space for further tax minimization. The availability of increasingly numerous legal regimes with progressively favorable tax exemptions provides legal affordances which firms can take advantage of to lower their tax bills.
Corporate tax minimization is facilitated by tax professionals, who act as intermediaries with presence and expertise across the globe. They are able to innovate and construct tax-minimizing legal structures and transactions. The thesis problematizes the current focus on ‘offshore’ and ‘tax havens’ as culprits. Through extensive mapping, it is documented how tax professionals facilitate tax avoidance from large cities in EU and OECD countries. As ‘system brokers’, these professionals are able to influence tax minimization through both firms and states, as they consult with governments and advice on tax systems that provide favorable legal regimes for international investors.
Overall, the dissertation argues for an increased focus on tax competition and tax professionals in the scholarship and regulation of corporate tax.