Change and Stability in Global Tax Policy

Abstract

Global tax regulation has recently undergone important transformations. The OECD persuaded tax havens, which had defended bank secrecy for decades, to agree to automatically report account information. Likewise, the EU Commission now uses its executive powers in competition policy against member states abetting profit shifting by multinationals. Concurrently, however, fundamental principles of international taxation enabling tax avoidance remained resilient against scrutiny from international regulators and civil society. We invite contributions identifying drivers of change as well as institutional and structural sources of inertia in global tax regulation with the aim of understanding the actual policy performance of the new standards.