Tax competition leads to inefficiently high savings taxes, study finds.
Countries can set taxes on capital and savings to attract investment, but people may hide income to avoid paying taxes. Even with tax evasion, the equilibrium under tax competition can still be efficient if the costs of hiding income are the same. If taxes on capital are too low, taxes on savings must be too high. Efficient tax policies can minimize the social cost of hiding income. Coordination between countries may not always be necessary under tax competition.