Preferential Regimes Can Make Tax Competition Less Harmful

A key feature of the recent EU and OECD standards for good behavior in international taxation is a presumption against preferential tax regimes (such as those offering advantageous treatment to non-residents or enterprises not active in the domestic market), which are seen as especially corrosive forms of tax competition. This paper shows that, on the contrary, preferential regimes may serve a useful strategic purpose in enabling countries to confine their most aggressive tax competition to particular parts of the tax system. Proscribing them therefore may—in the model here, certainly will—actually worsen tax competition.