Is There Money on the Table? Evidence on the Magnitude of Profit Shifting in the Extractive Industries

Profit shifting remains a key concern in international tax system debate, but discussions are largely based on aggregate estimates, with less attention paid to individual sectors. Drawing on a novel dataset, we quantify tax avoidance risks in the extractive industries, a sector which is revenue crit...

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Bibliographic Details
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: Washington, D.C. International Monetary Fund 2021
Series:IMF Working Papers
Subjects:
Online Access:
Collection: International Monetary Fund - Collection details see MPG.ReNa
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245 0 0 |a Is There Money on the Table? Evidence on the Magnitude of Profit Shifting in the Extractive Industries 
260 |a Washington, D.C.  |b International Monetary Fund  |c 2021 
300 |a 30 pages 
651 4 |a Azerbaijan, Republic of 
653 |a Natural Resource Extraction 
653 |a Tax Evasion and Avoidance 
653 |a Public finance & taxation 
653 |a Mineral industries 
653 |a Corporations 
653 |a Natural resources 
653 |a Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics 
653 |a Natural Resources 
653 |a Mining sector 
653 |a Environmental management 
653 |a Corporate income tax 
653 |a Tax avoidance 
653 |a Tax evasion 
653 |a Business Taxes and Subsidies 
653 |a Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue: General 
653 |a Transfer pricing rules 
653 |a Corporate & business tax 
653 |a Corporate Taxation 
653 |a Environmental and Ecological Economics: General 
653 |a Industry Studies: Primary Products and Construction: General 
653 |a Taxation 
653 |a Extractive industries 
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520 |a Profit shifting remains a key concern in international tax system debate, but discussions are largely based on aggregate estimates, with less attention paid to individual sectors. Drawing on a novel dataset, we quantify tax avoidance risks in the extractive industries, a sector which is revenue critical for many developing economies. We find that a one percentage point increase in the domestic corporate tax rate has historically reduced sectoral profits by slightly over 3 percent; and the response tends to be more pronounced among mining than among hydrocarbon firms. There is only weak evidence transfer pricing rules contain tax minimization efforts of MNEs in our sample, but interest limitation rules (e.g., thin capitalization or earnings based rules) do reduce the observable extent of profit shifting. Our findings highlight the challenge of taxing income in the natural resource sector and suggest how fiscal regime design might be strengthened