Sharing the Pie’: Taxing Multinationals in a Global Market’

The author was awarded his doctorate (cum laude) by the Erasmus University Rotterdam on 15 January 2015 for his thesis on ‘Sharing the Pie’; Taxing Multinationals in a Global Market. In his thesis, of which this contribution is a summary, De Wilde sets out a proposal for an alternative, more neutral system for taxing multinationals. His suggestion is that multinationals should be treated as a single taxable entity and granted an allowance for equity capital provided by shareholders. The proposal geographically assigns the tax base in international situations to the countries where the multinational effectively sells its products and services instead of, as is currently the case, to the countries in which its investments are located. Switching to the proposed system would seem attractive for countries and regions, both individually and as a totality, and would boost the investment climate.