International Transfer Pricing and Tax Avoidance: Evidence from Linked Trade-Tax Statistics in the UK
CESifo, Munich, 2017
CESifo Working Paper No. 6594
![](https://cesifo.org/DocImg/cesifo1_wp6594.jpg?c=1689237103)
This paper employs unique data on export transactions and corporate tax returns of UK multinational firms and finds that firms manipulate their transfer prices to shift profits to lower-taxed destinations. It uncovers three new findings on tax-motivated transfer mispricing in real goods. First, transfer mispricing increases substantially when taxation of foreign profits changes from a worldwide to a territorial approach in the UK, with multinationals shifting more profits into low-tax jurisdictions. Second, transfer mispricing increases with a firm’s R&D intensity. Third, tax-motivated transfer mispricing is concentrated in countries that are not tax havens and have low-to-medium-level corporate tax rates.
Public Finance
Trade Policy