Effects of welfare expenditure and tax rate raising policy on the relationship between tax rate and tax revenue in OECD countries

Abstract

There are debating arguments whether raising tax rate does increase tax revenue. This study investigates the relationship between tax rate and tax revenue using the data for the 34 countries from OECD tax database between 1981 and 2015. And this study executes nonlinear regression analysis in order to analyze the relationship. The result is that the national openness measured by the scale of the overseas trade weakens the positive (+) relationship between the corporate tax rate and the corporate tax revenue. This proves that the increase in corporate tax rate might not lead to the increase in the corporate tax revenue as the amount of the overseas trade gets larger. In the current world's economic condition where the trade between multinational corporates and countries are active, the main conclusion is that the tax policy of raising the corporate tax rate to secure the corporate tax revenue can rather lead to the result of failing to secure the corporate tax revenue.