Abstract
In her article, Mason concludes that politics – or “bargaining over national interests”— “will play a starring role in determining the outcomes” of the current digital tax project. In this essay, I apply public choice theory to the politics of international tax and argue that two questions can shape our understanding of international tax negotiations and therefore help us predict the outcomes of future international tax reform projects. First, what interests are country delegates representing? Second, how are countries using their involvement in international negotiations to represent these interests? The first question highlights that country delegates are often not defending some agreed-upon “national interest” but are instead often protecting the interests of particular political parties, industries, or taxpayers, which in turn means that interests can change over time and that some voices are missing from debates. The second question highlights that country delegates can engage in international tax negotiations in a variety of ways. They can try to limit what, if anything, the negotiations achieve; they can try to push for more expansive results; and they can use the negotiations to provide international support for their own country's laws. This essay focuses on one particular version of this third type of engagement, where delegates use their country's involvement in an international project to validate and legitimate an idea or proposal that may previously have had little support. I refer to this involvement as “international legitimation,” and I argue that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)/G20 Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Project shows that delegates who took this approach may have achieved the most long-term success in that their inclusion of little-known provisions or concepts in the international outputs of the BEPS Project ended up leading to these provisions and concepts being adopted by countries around the world.
Highlights
In her article, Mason concludes that politics – or “bargaining over national interests”— “will play a starring role in determining the outcomes” of the current digital tax project.[1]
I apply public choice theory to the politics of international tax and argue that two questions can shape our understanding of international tax negotiations and help us predict the outcomes of future international tax reform projects
What interests are country delegates representing? Second, how are countries using their involvement in international negotiations to represent these interests? The first question highlights that country delegates are often not defending some agreed-upon “national interest” but are instead often protecting the interests of particular political parties, industries, or taxpayers, which in turn means that interests can change over time and that some voices are missing from debates
Summary
If politics involves countries acting on behalf of their national interests, the first question to address is what those national interests are. Sometimes a negotiation is a pure revenue contest, with one country wanting to raise revenue at the expense of another. Often the politics are not that clear-cut. As public choice theory highlights, discussions of national interests should acknowledge that individual actors face different incentives and preferences, and this is as true in international tax negotiations as in other interactions.[2] In some international tax negotiations, the delegates sent by a country may, for example, be representing the interests of their political party but not necessarily the country as a whole. Prior to the BEPS Project, this dynamic occurred with the United States’ involvement in the
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