This pessimistic view is reinforced by domestic politics: in a first take,
one would expect individual and corporate capital to oppose a government’s
ambition to come to a collective agreement curbing tax competition
with other governments; and labour to oppose tax competition and
support measures against it because it leads to an increase of the tax burden
on labour relative to capital (Schwarz, 2007). The outcome would thus
depend on whether the government leans to the left or right. These initial
assumptions about the interests of big country governments and societal
interest groups must, however, be qualified in light of the differentiation
between two types of tax competition. Under real tax competition governments
compete for the attraction of real economic activity, i.e. production
facilities. In contrast, virtual tax competition for so-called paper profits is
about themere assignment of income, irrespective of where itwas actually
produced. This kind of tax competition is enabled by the particular solution
adopted to avoid double taxation, and accounts for a significant part
of real-world tax competition. The two types of tax competition are not
independent of each other. As long as multinational enterprises (MNE)
can shift paper profits out of high tax countries, they will not have to
relocate real economic activity in order to gain tax savings. If the possibilities
for profit shifting are closed, then real tax competition may intensify
and MNEs may relocate ‘real’ production facilities and jobs (Keen,
2001).