Verhaltensreaktionen und Aufkommenswirkungen bei Einführung einer G(K)KB

Abstract

In the course of a harmonization of corporate income taxation across the European Union an introduction of a Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB) has been taken into consideration for a longer period of time. Already in 2001 the European Commission has mentioned the possibility of an introduction of a CCCTB. The content related design has been consistently developed by the political institutions and in literature during the years. A tax reform regularly changes the amount of tax revenues in the affected states. Furthermore, changes in tax legislation lead to an amendment of company’s compliance costs for declaring taxable income. Moreover, after a modification of tax law companies might adopt their e.g. investment or financing strategies according to new tax rules. Against this background the first paper analyses possible behavioral effects on the choice of tax regime, investments and profit shifting if an optional CCCTB would be introduced. Subject of the second paper is the determination of possible revenue consequences on the German National Treasury if a Common Corporate Tax Base (CCTB) or a Common Business Tax Base (CBTB) would be introduced. In addition to the analysis of the overall chance of tax revenues the influence of differences between current German profit determination rules and the determination of taxable income according to the CCCTB concept (e.g. depreciation and amortization rules) are investigated. Moreover, compared to current German provisions on profit determination the change of compliance costs for the determination of taxable income according to the CCCTB concept is examined. The third paper deals with criticism referring to the use of economical experiments to analyze the effects of corporate taxation reforms. This critique refers to the circumstance that nonprofessional participants are often used in economical experiments, who do not have many experience regarding relevant tax rules. Therefore, because of missing external validity the results derived by an economical experiment using nonprofessional subjects could not be transferred to real life. Against this background the research objectives of the third paper are methodical issues. On the one hand the paper should help to identify eligible subject pools for analyzing the effects of reforming corporate taxation. On the other hand the efficiency of different experimental designs in the field of tax research is tested.