THE NEXUS BETWEEN INTERNATIONAL TAX COMPETITIVENESS AND THE SHADOW ECONOMY: A CROSS-COUNTRIES ANALYSIS

Abstract

Abstract. The article is devoted to the study of the essence and peculiarities of the growth of tax competitiveness of the country in the conditions of a significant amount of shadowing of incomes and legalization of illegally obtained funds. The object of the study is the levels of shadow economy and tax competitiveness of the country. In the paper the 5,348 publications in the Scopus database and 2,036 publications in the WoS database on tax competitiveness and 3,095 and 1,063 publications on the problems of shadowing, respectively, were analyzed. The time horizon of the research was in 1992—2021. On the basis of bibliometric analysis the main directions of research of tax competitiveness and shadowing of economy are defined, the comparative analysis of tendencies of change of quantity of publications on these questions is carried out. It is concluded that the level of research on these issues in international scientometric publications has been significantly intensified since 2003 and 2005. With the help of VOSViewer tools, the main economic categories that are most closely related to the country’s tax competitiveness are identified. Based on the results of the analysis, a hypothesis about the connection between the level of tax competitiveness of the country and the shadowing of the economy was put forward. The article identifies the leading scientific journals indexed by Scopus and WoS databases, in which the most frequently published research questions. It is determined that the majority of the papers on tax competitiveness have been published in high-ranking journals in the first and second quarters. A methodical approach to assessing the relationship between tax competitiveness of the country with the level of its shadow economy is proposed. On the example of EU countries a significant negative impact of economic shadowing on the competitiveness of the country’s tax system has been proven. It is concluded that the implementation of shadow schemes of concealment of income and legalization of illegally obtained income causes significant damage to the amount of tax revenues to the budget. The methodical approach to estimation of losses of the economy from shadow activity is offered in the work. According to the results of the study, measures to de-shadow the economy in the context of increasing the country’s tax competitiveness are proposed, in particular: bringing the domestic regulatory framework to the requirements of the international community, reducing corruption, reducing time spent on filing and filing tax reports, optimizing the tax burden. Keywords: tax competition, shadow economy, state policy, money laundering, bibliometric analysis. JEL Classification O17, E26, H20, H71, F38 Formulas: 1; fig.: 4; tabl.: 4; bibl.: 21.