Most Companies Won’t Relocate Internationally for Tax Rate Reductions

 A Grant Thornton survey of over 3,400 international businesses in 44 economies has found thattwo-thirds (67 percent) of companies would not choose to relocate their business to a foreign country for any degree of corporate tax reduction. Internationally, New Zealanders were found to be most resistant to relocation with 94 percent of polled business agreeing that they would not move out of the country for an improved corporate tax rate. New Zealand is followed on the list by Georgia (92 percent), Switzerland (90 percent), France (88 percent), Germany (87 percent), and Ireland (86 percent). The countries the most businesses were willing to vacate for a better tax rate included Russia, India, Taiwan, Greece, Botswana, and Norway.

Over two-thirds of business leaders (68 percent) would prefer their own country lowering the corporate tax rate even at the expense of some tax deductions. This behavior was most supported in Vietnam (94 percent), followed by Lithuania (92 percent), Malaysia (92 percent), Peru (90 percent), Greece (88 percent), Mexico (82 percent), India (81 percent), and the United States (76 percent).

Involving domestic tax issues, 61 percent of business leaders think that their government is not doing enough through taxes to help ease economic pressures. The highest dissatisfaction rates with government taxation policies were Argentina (92 percent), Japan (86 percent), Poland (82 percent), Spain (82 percent), Latvia (78 percent), Australia (77 percent), and Denmark (76 percent).