Tax Competition Creating Pressure for Lower Corporate Rate in Canada

Neil Reynolds continues his good work by explaining how tax competition is leading to better policy and that Canada better jump on the tax‐​cutting bandwagon:

As tax reform sweeps the world, Canada stands resolutely on guard for high rates. …the two essential principles of good government remain unchanged: (1) If you want more of something, subsidize it; (2) if you want less of something, tax it. …Britain’s Margaret Thatcher, a conservative, was the first leader in Europe to cut corporate rates. In the 1980s, she reduced them from 52 per cent to 35 per cent. This was the catalyst. As KPMG observed last year in a global review of corporate taxes, once Britain acted, “other [European] countries seemed compelled to do the same.” …In 1987, Denmark went from 50 per cent to 30 per cent. In 1991, Sweden went from 60 per cent to 28 per cent. In 1992, Norway went from 51 per cent to 28 per cent. In 1993, Finland went from 43 per cent to 25 per cent. Germany and France, bastion countries of Europe, fiercely resisted, trying to turn tax competition into a criminal conspiracy. Yet, in 2000, Social Democrat chancellor Gerhard Schroeder cut Germany’s corporate federal rate from 40 per cent to 25 per cent. (Combined with local and regional corporate taxes, the country’s rate remained one of the highest in the world at 40 per cent.) Now, finally, Germany has capitulated, surrendering unconditionally, cutting its combined rate from 40 per cent to 30 per cent. …France, in turn, will cut its corporate rate, now 33 per cent, by “a minimum of five percentage points” — assuming French President Nicolas Sarkozy, a conservative, keeps this promise. Spain’s socialist Prime Minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, has announced that he will cut rates by as much as France. In the past 14 years (1992–2006), KPMG calculated that the average corporate tax rate in the world has fallen by almost one‐​third — from 38 per cent to 27 per cent. The economic evidence, the company said, indicates that the countries that adopted lower rates had tended to “do better” than the countries that had not.