Abstract:
CORTAX is a macroeconomic model that focuses on corporate taxation and is used extensively for European Commission policy assessments. As a macroeconomic model, it simulates variables such as GDP, investment and employment, while being especially notable for its focus on corporate income taxation (CIT). It models the key aspects of CIT, such as multinational profit shifting, investment decisions, loss compensation, and debt-equity financing. CORTAX is versatile and can be used to examine different aspects of CIT, such as adjusting or harmonizing the CIT rate or base, addressing debt bias in CIT, and consolidation of the multinational CIT base. CORTAX is a multi-country model, covering all EU Member States, selected partner countries, and a tax haven. The general equilibrium framework of the model captures the interactions between different economic actors, including those between multinational headquarters and foreign subsidiaries. This calibration updates the model to 2019. This paper outlines the model structure, and explains the methodology used to arrive at the new baseline, including explaining the choices of data sources and parameters. The paper provides key summary results that serve as both a description and a validation of the model, and also serves as a reference for future work carried out using CORTAX 2019.
