Fighting international tax avoidance

<p>There is broad agreement in theoretical work that taxes on capital income arebound to cease when markets become fully integrated. In particular, high-tax countries should be concerned about tax competition, and empirical evidence onthe working of tax competition should be found most easily by looking atcountries with traditionally high tax rates on capital income. In this respect,Germany is a good candidate for closer examination. Throughout the 1980s, it had the highest statutory corporate tax rate of all major industrial countries. This makes it worthwhile considering recent German tax legislation and evaluating the extent to which international tax competition was responsible for new tax law amendments. In doing so, the emphasis is on corporate taxation.</p>