The Normative Shift in Corporate Tax Policy after GloBE

In the era of global minimum taxes, the merit of any given national corporate income tax will depend on which governments will be collecting corporate tax revenues, and at whose expense. This marks a shift in focus away from a century-old baseline assumption: before this era, the likelihood that a corporation would face income tax at all was in no way assured, but now, any given corporate income stream will likely be subject to tax by some government, somewhere – if not yet in practice, presumably some time in the near future. This shift in assumption alters the terrain for normative policy analysis by centering questions that were formerly sidelined, especially respecting the impact of taxes on the international distribution of wealth among nations. This article examines the implications of this shift and shows why it leads to a clear understanding of corporate taxes as a key international wealth distribution tool.