Order Code RS22445
May 19, 2006
CRS Report for Congress
Received through the CRS Web
Taxes and International Competitiveness
David L. Brumbaugh
Specialist in Public Finance
Government and Finance Division
Summary
The term “international competitiveness” has long been an important part of tax
policy debates and most recently has been prominent in discussions about fundamental
U.S. tax reform. For example, President Bush has stated that one goal of reform should
be to “strengthen the competitiveness of the United States in the global market place.”1
And, in announcing its 2006 hearings on tax reform, the House Ways and Means
Committee indicated that one focus of the hearings would be competitiveness. Yet
despite the prominence of the term “competitiveness,” its meaning is often vague, with
its definition frequently depending on the perspective of the user. This report looks at
competitiveness from three different perspectives: that of individual domestic firms,
multinational corporations, and domestic labor. In each case, the report then applies
economic analysis to the competitiveness concept, which adds clarity by identifying the
specific ways in which taxes affect international trade and investment. With trade, tax
burdens can affect what is traded, its overall level, and who benefits from trade, but they
do not directly affect the trade balance. Further, it is the pattern of relative U.S. taxes
within the domestic economy that matters for trade, not how a firm’s taxes compare with
those of its foreign competitors. With investment, taxes can affect the extent to which
U.S. firms establish operations abroad and can affect economic efficiency and welfare
as well as the distribution of income within the domestic economy and between the
United States and foreign countries. This report explains basic economic principles and
will not be updated.
Taxes and International Trade: Competitiveness from
the Individual Firm’s Perspective
One perspective on competitiveness is that of the individual U.S. firm with
exclusively domestic operations. For such a firm, the focus of competitiveness is trade.
The company and its components — its owners, managers, employees, and perhaps even
the community in which it is situated — likely define competitiveness as the firm’s ability
to compete for market share against imports from abroad or to compete with foreign firms
in overseas export markets. From this perspective, the impact of taxes on competitiveness
1 U.S. President (Bush), “President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform,” Executive Order
13369, Federal Register, vol. 70, Jan. 7, 2005, p. 2323.
Congressional Research Service ˜ The Library of Congress

---

CRS-2
likely seems straightforward: taxes are an item of cost, and so how the U.S. firm’s own
taxes compare with those of its foreign competitors likely appears to be of critical
importance. And from the firm’s perspective, targeted tax relief probably seems an
obvious way to improve the firm’s competitive position. For example, foreign
governments may appear to be subsidizing the U.S. firm’s foreign competitors;
consequently, a tax benefit for exports or perhaps a tax credit or accelerated depreciation
allowance may seem like useful ways to “level the playing field.”2
The focus here is on trade, but although economic theory agrees that taxes can affect
trade, they do so in ways that are frequently at odds with the results that may seem
intuitive at the firm level. The reason for the diverging views is differences in
perspective: economics points out that the impact of particular tax policies reverberates
throughout the economy, causing adjustments that offset effects that may seem obvious
at the firm level. As a result, to see the impact of taxes on trade accurately, the
perspective must move beyond that of the individual firm to that of the economy as a
whole.
In shifting to the economic perspective, we look first at the economy’s trade balance
— perhaps what is popularly viewed as how U.S. firms in the aggregate fare against their
foreign competitors. Here, the economic conclusion appears almost counterintuitive:
taxes on export income or on import-competing goods have no direct bearing on the
balance of trade.3 The reason is exchange-rate adjustments, which act to neutralize the
impact of tax policies targeted at trade. An example may prove helpful. Suppose a
country implements a tax benefit for exporting that is designed to offset foreign subsidies,
real or perceived. Economics indicates that if foreign consumers are to buy more of the
exports, they will require more of the domestic currency (i.e., dollars). The increased
demand will drive up the exchange rate, making dollars more expensive for foreign
buyers. The increased price of dollars will make exports more expensive for foreign
buyers and imports of foreign goods less expensive for domestic buyers. Some or all of
any initial expansion in exports will be offset by the adjustments, and imports will
expand. After the adjustments, there will have been no change in the country’s trade
balance.
In short, taxes on trade do not directly affect the trade balance. Although this
conclusion may seem counter intuition, its explanation is more easily understood when
we look at the nature of the trade balance itself. An economy’s trade balance — either
a deficit or a surplus — is simply the amount by which the goods and services a country
uses differs from the amount of goods and services it actually produces. A trade deficit
is the excess of a country’s current use of goods and services over what it produces; a
trade surplus is the value of its production minus the value of what it keeps for itself. The
2 For an example of this perspective, see U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Small Business,
The WTO’s Challenge to FSC/ETI Rules and the Effects on America’s Small Business Owners,
hearing, 108th Cong., 1st sess., May 14, 2003 (Washington: GPO, 2003), pp. 17-18.
3 This sets aside the impact tax revenues may have on the trade balance through their effect on
the government’s budget deficit. For example, a tax cut that reduces government revenue may
increase the budget deficit, placing upward pressure on real interest rates. The higher interest
rates, in turn, may attract greater inflows of foreign capital. The exchange rate adjustments that
result may increase the trade deficit.

---

CRS-3
intuition is this: just as an individual cannot consume more than he earns in a given period
unless he borrows, a country cannot run a trade deficit unless it, in effect, borrows by
importing capital from foreign countries to finance the difference.
A country’s trade balance, in short, is mirrored by its balance on capital account. For
example, a country’s trade deficit is necessarily mirrored by the excess of its imports of
investment over investment outflows. Thus, the capital- and current-account balances
move in lock-step; the trade balance can change only if capital flows change at the same
time. Under the particular institutional framework of the current international economy,
flexible exchange rates maintain the relation between the trade balance (the “current
account”) and the investment balance (the “balance on capital account”). In short, if a tax
cut does not change the balance on capital account, the trade balance does not change.
If taxes do not affect the trade balance, what is their impact? Standard economic
analysis relies on one of the basic foundations of international trade theory: Ricardo’s
theory of comparative advantage. Without presenting a comprehensive treatment of the
theory, its essence holds that countries trade, in effect, in order to specialize in the
production of those goods and services they produce most efficiently. Thus, it is the
economy’s own internal pattern of costs that matter rather than how its overall cost of
production compares with those of foreign economies.
According to the theory of comparative advantage, taxes do not alter the balance of
trade, but they can potentially alter the composition of trade. For example, if a country’s
taxes apply unevenly across its various industries, they will likely alter the particular mix
of products the country imports and exports. Building on the above illustration where a
tax credit or accelerated depreciation is targeted at an industry threatened by foreign
competition, this analysis indicates that the targeted industry may well see its exports or
import-competing sales increase as the targeted tax benefit alters the pattern of relative
costs across the economy. At the same time, the international position of that country’s
less favored industries will decline as a part of the impact of taxes on the mix of goods
that are exported and imported.
Economic analysis also indicates that tax policy towards trade can alter how
economic welfare is distributed within the economy. For example, a targeted tax benefit
designed to boost the competitiveness of one sector may in the short run benefit the
owners and employees of the favored sector; at the same time, however, it will likely
reduce economic welfare in sectors of the economy that do not receive the benefit. Again,
however, economics emphasizes an economy-wide perspective. Here, it generally
concludes that a tax policy that applies unevenly across sectors of the economy distorts
the allocation of resources and diverts them from their most productive uses. Thus,
although an uneven tax policy may produce “winners” in some sectors and “losers” in
others, on balance the economy registers a reduction in economic welfare because of the
reduction in economic efficiency. An uneven, distorting tax policy that is meant to
improve trade performance likely means that the economy will specialize in the
production of items it is not particularly good at making, to the detriment of overall
economic welfare.
According to trade theory, each country that is a partner to trade obtains benefits
from that trade; trading partners are not competing such that one country’s gain is the
other’s loss. Rather, there are mutual gains from trade because trade allows countries to

---

CRS-4
specialize in activities they do best and trade for products they make less efficiently.
Under certain conditions, tax policy can alter how the gains from trade are shared among
countries, but in ways that are, again, counterintuitive. For example, to the extent that an
export subsidy is passed on to foreign consumers as lower prices, the subsidy shifts
economic welfare from the subsidizing country to the foreign consumers of its exports.
(In economic parlance, the subsidizing country’s “terms of trade” are worsened.) Or, if
a country has market power such that the burden of taxes on some goods is borne by
foreign consumers, a judiciously applied tax policy could improve the terms of trade.
However, even setting aside the international legality of such a policy and the possibility
of retaliation, identifying the product areas where this might occur is problematic.
Taxes and Overseas Investment: Competitiveness
and Multinational Corporations
Another perspective on competitiveness is that of a U.S. multinational corporation
— a firm that is based in the United States but that has production facilities abroad (what
economists term “foreign direct investment”).4 Such a firm likely defines competitiveness
as the ability of its overseas operations to compete for market share with firms from
foreign host countries or firms from third countries. With respect to taxes, the firm is
likely to focus on how its own taxes compare with those of its foreign competitors. From
this perspective, a policy that helps competitiveness is one that reduces the multinationals’
taxes vis-a-vis foreign firms; multinationals have traditionally argued that a policy that
exempts foreign operations from home-country (i.e., U.S.) tax ensures that U.S.
multinationals are not at a competitive disadvantage with foreign firms.
The focus of this view of competitiveness is investment rather than trade. As with
trade, however, economic theory’s conclusions about the impact of taxes on investment
differs from that of the firm. Economics agrees that home-country taxes can affect the
attractiveness of overseas investment, and thus alter the extent to which U.S. firms
undertake foreign direct investment. According to theory, however, the important
comparison is not how foreign firms’ taxes compare with those of the U.S. multinationals.
Instead, the crucial comparison is between taxes on overseas investment — both U.S.
taxes and any foreign taxes that apply — and the U.S. tax burden that would apply to
alternative investment in the domestic economy. Where taxes on overseas investment are
lower than taxes on domestic investment, firms undertake more foreign investment than
they otherwise would; hence, this tax policy increases foreign investment. Where taxes
on foreign investment are relatively high, foreign investment is discouraged, and where
taxes are the same in either location, tax policy does not alter the extent of foreign
investment.
Theory acknowledges that a home-country exemption for foreign income may well
maximize the competitiveness of the home country’s multinationals. Again, however,
economics indicates that a broader perspective produces different results. First, theory
holds that, if left to their own devices, profit-maximizing firms will employ their
4 For an example of this perspective, see U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Finance, An
Examination of U.S. Tax Policy and Its Effect on the International Competitiveness of U.S.-
Owned Foreign Operations, hearing, 108th Cong., 1st sess., July 15, 2003 (Washington: GPO,
2003), p. 59.

---

CRS-5
investments in the most productive locations possible — a result that maximizes the
economic welfare produced by the investment. Taxes, in turn, will not distort firms’
investment decisions if tax burdens on domestic and foreign investment are equal. In
short, although a tax exemption for foreign investment might maximize the competitive
position of the home country’s multinationals, a tax policy that equalizes tax burdens at
home and abroad maximizes world economic welfare. In contrast, an exemption policy
— one that maximizes multinational competitiveness — would likely distort the location
of investment, resulting in more investment where foreign taxes are lower than taxes in
the United States, and lower investment when foreign taxes are higher. The economics
literature has developed labels for the different policies, as follows: “competitive
neutrality,” or “capital import neutrality,” is an exemption policy that maximizes the
competitive position of a country’s firms; “capital export neutrality” is a policy that
produces equal tax burdens at home and abroad and that (as a result) maximizes world
economic welfare because investment flows to its most efficient global location.
Economics also concludes that the perspective of multinationals’ home country may
differ from that of the foreign host countries. World economic welfare — that is, the
welfare of the home and foreign countries combined — is maximized when capital is
allocated to its most productive location. But if a country is capital-rich, as is the United
States, the capital exporting country’s economic welfare is maximized when tax policy
to some extent discourages overseas investment. In such cases, foreign labor bears part
of the burden of the export-discouraging tax, and policy increases the tax-inclusive return
to the foreign investment that does occur. (Countries with less capital lack sufficient market
power to pass on the burden of their taxes.) A tax policy of this nature — termed “national
neutrality” — would apply a higher tax burden to foreign operations than to domestic
investment, thus damping the flow of capital abroad. As discussed further below,
although a policy of national neutrality maximizes the capital exporting country’s welfare,
it also alters the division of income between capital and labor, shifting income towards
labor and away from capital. And, since national neutrality distorts the location of
investment, it produces an inefficient “deadweight” reduction in world economic welfare.
It is beyond the scope of this report to describe how current U.S. tax policy affects
foreign investment. Here, we simply note that U.S. policy varies widely, depending on
the situation of the investing firm and the particular country where investment occurs.
Different features of the system are consistent with different principles. For example, the
ability of U.S. multinationals to in some cases indefinitely defer U.S. tax on foreign
income is consistent with competitive neutrality. Other provisions (e.g., the foreign tax
credit and Subpart F’s limit of deferral) are consistent with capital export neutrality. The
foreign tax credit itself is limited, however, a feature consistent with national neutrality.

International Taxation and Domestic Employment:
Labor’s Perspective
A third perspective on competitiveness is that of domestic labor in general.5 As
described in the first section’s discussion of competitiveness from the individual firm’s
5 For an example of this perspective, see the testimony of AFL-CIO official Thea Lea, in U.S.
Congress, House, Committee on Small Business, The WTO’s Challenge to FSC/ETI Rules and
the Effects on America’s Small Business Owners, p. 15.

---

CRS-6
perspective, an individual firm’s employees are likely to share concerns about trade with
the firm’s other “stakeholders.” Like the firm’s owners and managers, a trading firm’s
employees are likely to define competitiveness in trade as the firm’s ability to compete
against foreign firms in export markets or in markets within the United States. Labor’s
policy prescriptions are likely to be in accord with those of the firm’s owners — targeted
tax relief.
In contrast, labor’s perspective on competitiveness and international investment
generally diverges from that of a multinational firm’s owners. Rather than viewing itself
as being in competition with foreign multinationals (as U.S. multinationals often do),
domestic labor frequently views the competition as being between investment sites; labor
tends to view competitiveness as the ability of the United States to compete with foreign
countries as a location for what it views as job-creating business investment. The tax
policy prescription that results is in accordance with this view: domestic labor has tended
to support tax polices that act to discourage overseas investment, in some cases
supporting tax measures explicitly designed to penalize “runaway plants” — broadly,
plants that shut down operations in the United States and shift production abroad.
What does economic theory say about labor and international investment? Here
again, theory reaches certain conclusions that counter intuition. First, economic analysis
is skeptical about the ability of international investment flows to affect the total level of
employment in economy. In the short run, the closure of a domestic factory and its
movement abroad will doubtless cause unemployment in the closed factory’s location.
In the long run, however, the economy tends to absorb much of the labor released when
a firm shuts down or simply goes out of business. The economy as a whole, moreover,
always has a certain amount of such transitional unemployment that occurs when firms
alter their operations by, for example, shutting down operations in one location and
moving to another, either at home or abroad.
The economic change behind such transitional employment is the result of a variety
of factors, ranging from technological progress, to exogenous shocks, to changes in
institutional policies. Theory suggests, however, that a permanent policy of discouraging
the movement of U.S. firms abroad would not appreciably alter the economy’s overall
level of employment; economists generally believe that monetary and fiscal policy are the
most effective methods of addressing spikes in unemployment, and that adjustment
assistance is the most effective policy prescription for short-run, local job loss.
Although investment flows do not alter aggregate employment, theory does indicate
that capital flows do affect the distribution of incomes within the domestic economy; this
result was briefly noted in the previous section’s discussion of national neutrality. The
shift occurs because labor is more productive the more capital it has to work with. As a
result, wages are generally higher and labor receives a larger share of income (and capital
a smaller share) the higher is the domestic economy’s capital/labor ratio. Thus, it is not
surprising that labor views the flow of capital abroad with distrust, notwithstanding its
tendency to see its results in terms of their impact on employment.

---