[matthiasl]

"The lack of a tax is not a subsidy." -- dsfyu404ed

Do you have a reference for that claim? Other sources explicitly count tax breaks as a type of subsidy, for instance

"In countries with well-developed tax systems, subsidies provided by reducing companies' tax burdens are commonplace. Examples include tax exemptions (when a tax is not paid), tax credits (which reduce a tax otherwise due), tax deferrals (which delay the payment of a tax) and a host of other instruments. In common language these preferential tax treatments are called tax breaks or tax concessions; public-finance economists refer to them as tax expenditures."

https://web.archive.org/web/20120905082615/http://www.iisd.o...