This is the fifth edition of Corporate Tax Statistics, an annual publication that brings together information on corporate taxation and base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) practices that previously were unavailable to tax policy researchers and policymakers. This includes data on corporate tax rates, revenues, effective tax rates (ETR), tax incentives for research and development (R&D) and innovation, and withholding taxes amongst other data series. Corporate Tax Statistics also includes anonymised and aggregated Country-by-Country Report (CbCR) data providing an overview on the global tax and economic activities of thousands of multinational enterprise groups operating worldwide. Corporate Tax Statistics follows on from the OECD/G20 BEPS Project and its package of fifteen measures adopted in 2015 to address tax avoidance. The project’s Action 11 noted that the lack of available and high-quality data on corporate taxation is a major limitation to the measurement and monitoring of the scale of BEPS and the impact of the measures agreed to be implemented under the OECD/G20 BEPS Project.

In developing this 2023 edition of the Corporate Tax Statistics database, the OECD has worked closely with members of the Inclusive Framework (IF) on base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) and other jurisdictions willing to participate in the collection and compilation of statistics relevant to corporate taxation.

Corporate Tax Statistics is an annual publication intended to assist in the study of corporate tax policy and expand the quality and range of data available for the analysis of base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS). This includes data on corporate tax rates, revenues, effective tax rates, and tax incentives for research and development (R&D) and innovation, withholding tax rates, Intellectual Property (IP) regimes, and tax treaties. Corporate Tax Statistics also includes anonymised and aggregated  Country-by-Country Reporting (CbCR) data providing an overview on the global tax and economic activities of thousands of multinational enterprise groups operating worldwide.

Data on corporate tax revenues can be used for comparison across jurisdictions and to track trends over time. The data in the Corporate Tax Statistics database is drawn from the OECD’s Global Revenue Statistics Database and allows for the comparison of individual jurisdictions as well as average corporate tax revenues across OECD, LAC, African, and Asian and Pacific jurisdictions. The Global Revenue Statistics Database covers 120 jurisdictions as of October 2023. Data on corporate tax revenues is available for 116of these jurisdictions. In addition to the OECD, the Global Revenue Statistics Database also contains data on 29 Asian and Pacific jurisdictions, 27 Latin America and Caribbean jurisdictions, and 30 African jurisdictions, and averages for the LAC, African, and Asian and Pacific regions.

Statutory CIT rates show the headline tax rate faced by corporations and can be used to compare the standard tax rate on corporations across jurisdictions and over time. As STRs measure the marginal tax that would be paid on an additional unit of income, in the absence of other provisions in the tax code, they are often used in studies of base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) to measure the incentive that firms have to shift income between jurisdictions.

Variations in the definition of corporate tax bases across jurisdictions can have a significant impact on the tax liability associated with a given investment. For instance, corporate tax systems differ across jurisdictions with regard to several important features, such as fiscal depreciation rules as well as other tax provisions. To capture the effects of these provisions on corporate tax bases and tax liabilities, it is necessary to go beyond a comparison of statutory corporate income tax (CIT) rates.

Incentivising investment in R&D by businesses ranks high on the innovation policy agenda of many jurisdictions. R&D tax incentives have become a widely used policy tool to promote business R&D over recent decades. Several jurisdictions offer them in addition to direct forms of support such as R&D grants or government purchases of R&D services. R&D tax incentives can provide relief to R&D expenditures, such as the wages of R&D staff and/or to the income derived from R&D activities, such as patent income. The indicators referred to in this section relate to expenditure-based R&D tax incentives. An overview of income-based tax incentives is available in the section on Intellectual Property regimes. The significant variation in the design of expenditure-based R&D tax relief provisions across jurisdictions and over time affects the implied generosity of R&D tax incentives.

Country-by-country reporting was implemented as part of Action 13 of the OECD/G20 BEPS Project to support jurisdictions in combating base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS). Under BEPS Action 13, all large MNEs are required to prepare a country-by-country (CbC) report with aggregate data on the global allocation of income, profit, taxes paid and economic activity among tax jurisdictions in which it operates. This CbC report is shared with tax administrations in these jurisdictions, for use in high level transfer pricing and BEPS risk assessments.

The Corporate Tax Statistics database also includes information on IP regimes. Many jurisdictions have implemented IP regimes, which allow income from the exploitation of certain IP assets to be taxed at a lower rate than the standard statutory tax rate (STR).

Withholding taxes (WHTs) are levied on businesses when they make payments to other foreign or domestic business entities or individuals, e.g., in the form of dividends, interest, and royalties. Governments collect these taxes based on statutory or preferential treaty-based tax rates requiring businesses to withhold a fraction of cross-border payments in scope of the WHT.