The effect of income shifting on the local income tax revenues of Flemish municipalities

Income shifting refers to the transfer of the tax base to a tax characterised by lower average or marginal rates. In the literature the focus is mostly on the shift from corporate taxes to income taxes and the effects of this shift on central governments revenues. In this paper, we focus on the effect on local tax revenues. In Belgium the local governments do not have access to the tax income from the corporate tax, which is levied on corporate income from specific legal persons. Only when a business is set up as a sole proprietorship, local governments’ income is affected, through the impact... Mehr ...