Do multinational corporations pay their “Fair Share”?

Abstract

Various Multinational Corporations minimize their effective global tax rate, and hence their contribution to public services, through Corporate Tax Avoidance. Taxpaying citizens, however, cannot reap these benefits of country-specific legislation under the international tax system, and frequently carry the majority of the tax burden. Hence, corporations are subject to accusations of not paying a “fair share”. Based on equity theory, our paper analyses citizens’ perception of fairness in regard to corporate taxation. By executing a mediation analysis, we determine which corporate tax rate is perceived as fair, mediating the relationship between equity theory determinants (individuals’ tax system satisfaction, a social comparison with other entities, and cultural value-based cognition) and possible system-supportive or detrimental consequences. We confirm that a perception of inequity is prevalent among the 218 participants in our survey, and “fair burden-sharing” is perceived to be non-existent. We contribute to theory by classifying the social comparison determinant as most relevant for the fairness perceptions among individuals towards questionable business practices. Moreover, we emphasize that CTA needs to be considered a possible legitimacy threat for societal and institutional functioning since it may increase citizens’ tax avoidant behavior, and jeopardizes social cohesion. However, the cultural values of power distance and masculinity were found to mitigate these generally detrimental consequences of CTA. Our practical and institutional implications put great emphasis on further promoting fairness within the international tax system since the recently suggested global corporate tax rate of 15% is still not considered as fair by our survey participants.