Income Shifting Incentives and Offshored U.S. Jobs

Abstract

This study uses a small, but detailed sample of offshored U.S. jobs from a program within the Department of Labor called Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) to examine the association between international income shifting incentives and where multinational firms choose to move offshored U.S. jobs. Overall, I find that for every percentage point increase in the gains from shifting taxable income into a particular foreign country, the likelihood that firms in my sample send U.S. jobs to that country increases by approximately 4%. However, across certain offshoring arrangements, types of firms, and types of jobs I find that tax incentives have little or no association with where offshored U.S. jobs are moved suggesting that there is cross sectional variation in the importance of tax incentives in labor offshoring decisions. These findings add to the mosaic of studies examining both the real effects and the welfare consequences that result from incentives created by the current U.S. international tax system.