The International Income Taxation of Portfolio Debt in the Presence of Bi-Directional Capital Flows

Abstract

A country's net flow of capital consists of simultaneously occurring imports and exports. Because a tax on the income from capital imports affects the quantity of capital exports and vice versa, tax policies toward inbound and outbound capital should be jointly formulated in order to avoid distortion of these bi-directional flows. For a small open economy, welfare-efficient local capital markets are shown to require, in the limited case of portfolio debt flows: (1) the taxation of income from capital imports by the importing country at the same rate as income of residents from locally invested capital; and (2) the exemption from tax in the home country of income of its residents from capital exports.