Lukas Hakelberg and Thomas Rixen from COFFERS working package 3 at the University of Bamberg wrote an accessible popular science piece on the purported end of tax havens for the social science supplement of the German Bundestag’s weekly newspaper (Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte).

They show how tax competition and tax havens emerged after governments had removed institutional barriers to international capital mobility but failed to harmonize their tax policies accordingly. By defending their de jure sovereignty in tax policymaking, governments unleashed competitive pressures that still limit their de facto sovereignty in the taxation of capital.

International initiatives towards more cooperation in tax matters have only been successful, where affected interest groups in powerful OECD countries lacked influence on the political process. This explains why we have recently seen progress – brought about by coercive pressure – in the fight against tax evasion by households, but relatively little change in the fight against tax avoidance by multinational firms.

You can read the full piece here (in German).