IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v104y2014i5p154-58.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Year-End Tax Planning of Top Management: Evidence from High-Frequency Payroll Data

Author

Listed:
  • Claus Thustrup Kreiner
  • S?ren Leth-Petersen
  • Peer Ebbesen Skov

Abstract

Using Danish high-frequency payroll data and tax reform variation, we detect year-end tax avoidance among top managers. Five to seven percent of top managers exploit year-end tax planning strategies to save taxes. Around 30 percent of the top managers engaging in year-end tax avoidance do so by retiming bonus payments while the rest shift regular wage income. However, bonus timing is most tax-sensitive. When considering all of the top managers receiving a December bonus, we find that more than one-quarter retime the bonus payment, whereas only 5 percent of those not receiving a bonus shift regular wage income.

Suggested Citation

  • Claus Thustrup Kreiner & S?ren Leth-Petersen & Peer Ebbesen Skov, 2014. "Year-End Tax Planning of Top Management: Evidence from High-Frequency Payroll Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(5), pages 154-158, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:104:y:2014:i:5:p:154-58
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.104.5.154
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.104.5.154
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/aer/data/10405/P2014_1092_data.zip
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/aer/ds/10405/P2014_1092_ds.zip
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Claus Thustrup Kreiner & Søren Leth-Petersen & Peer Ebbesen Skov, 2016. "Tax Reforms and Intertemporal Shifting of Wage Income: Evidence from Danish Monthly Payroll Records," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 233-257, August.
    2. Austan Goolsbee, 2000. "What Happens When You Tax the Rich? Evidence from Executive Compensation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(2), pages 352-378, April.
    3. Slemrod, Joel, 1995. "Income Creation or Income Shifting? Behavioral Responses to the Tax Reform Act of 1986," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(2), pages 175-180, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Claus Thustrup Kreiner & Daniel Reck & Peer Ebbesen Skov, 2020. "Do Lower Minimum Wages for Young Workers Raise Their Employment? Evidence from a Danish Discontinuity," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(2), pages 339-354, May.
    2. Carina Neisser, 2021. "The Elasticity of Taxable Income: A Meta-Regression Analysis [The top 1% in international and historical perspective]," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(640), pages 3365-3391.
    3. Joerg Paetzold, 2019. "How do taxpayers respond to a large kink? Evidence on earnings and deduction behavior from Austria," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 26(1), pages 167-197, February.
    4. Doerrenberg, Philipp & Peichl, Andreas & Siegloch, Sebastian, 2017. "The elasticity of taxable income in the presence of deduction possibilities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 41-55.
    5. Spencer Bastani & Daniel Waldenström, 2020. "The Ability Gradient in Bunching," CESifo Working Paper Series 8233, CESifo.
    6. Johannes Hagen, 2018. "The effects of increasing the normal retirement age on health care utilization and mortality," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 31(1), pages 193-234, January.
    7. Jeppe Druedahl & Michael Graber & Thomas H. Jørgensen, 2021. "High Frequency Income Dynamics," CEBI working paper series 21-08, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. The Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI).
    8. Hagen, Johannes, 2016. "What are the Health effects of postponing retirement? An instrumental variable approach," Working Paper Series 2016:11, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    9. Engström, Per & Nordblom, Katarina & Stefansson, Arnaldur, 2018. "Multiple Misbehaving:Loss Averse and Inattentive to Monetary Incentives," Working Papers in Economics 729, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    10. Doerrenberg, Philipp & Peichl, Andreas & Siegloch, Sebastian, 2014. "Sufficient Statistic or Not? The Elasticity of Taxable Income in the Presence of Deduction Possibilities," IZA Discussion Papers 8554, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Jarkko Harju & Tuomas Matikka, 2016. "The elasticity of taxable income and income-shifting: what is “real” and what is not?," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 23(4), pages 640-669, August.
    12. Vitalijs Jascisens & Anna Zasova, 2021. "Million Dollar Baby: Should Parental Benefits Depend on Wages When the Payroll Tax Evasion is Present?," SSE Riga/BICEPS Research Papers 9, Baltic International Centre for Economic Policy Studies (BICEPS);Stockholm School of Economics in Riga (SSE Riga).
    13. Hans Schytte Sigaard, 2022. "Labor Supply Responsiveness to Tax Reforms," Economics Working Papers 2022-04, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    14. Johannes Hermle & Andreas Peichl, 2018. "Jointly Optimal Taxes for Different Types of Income," CESifo Working Paper Series 7248, CESifo.
    15. Sigaard, Hans Schytte, 2023. "Estimating labor supply responses to Danish tax reforms," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 224(C).
    16. Pablo Gutierrez Cubillos, 2022. "Dividend tax credits and the elasticity of taxable income: evidence from small businesses," Working Papers 630, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jakobsen, Katrine Marie & Søgaard, Jakob Egholt, 2022. "Identifying behavioral responses to tax reforms: New insights and a new approach," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    2. Carina Neisser, 2021. "The Elasticity of Taxable Income: A Meta-Regression Analysis [The top 1% in international and historical perspective]," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(640), pages 3365-3391.
    3. Hans Schytte Sigaard, 2022. "Labor Supply Responsiveness to Tax Reforms," Economics Working Papers 2022-04, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    4. Jarkko Harju & Tuomas Matikka, 2016. "The elasticity of taxable income and income-shifting: what is “real” and what is not?," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 23(4), pages 640-669, August.
    5. Sigaard, Hans Schytte, 2023. "Estimating labor supply responses to Danish tax reforms," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 224(C).
    6. Doerrenberg, Philipp & Peichl, Andreas & Siegloch, Sebastian, 2017. "The elasticity of taxable income in the presence of deduction possibilities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 41-55.
    7. Kristoffer Berg & Thor O. Thoresen, 2020. "Problematic response margins in the estimation of the elasticity of taxable income," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 27(3), pages 721-752, June.
    8. Kindsgrab, Paul M., 2022. "Do higher income taxes on top earners trickle down? A local labor markets approach," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 214(C).
    9. Matikka, Tuomas, 2014. "Taxable Income Elasticity and the Anatomy of Behavioral Response: Evidence from Finland," Working Papers 55, VATT Institute for Economic Research.
    10. Doerrenberg, Philipp & Peichl, Andreas & Siegloch, Sebastian, 2014. "Sufficient Statistic or Not? The Elasticity of Taxable Income in the Presence of Deduction Possibilities," IZA Discussion Papers 8554, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Emmanuel Saez, 2017. "Taxing the Rich More: Preliminary Evidence from the 2013 Tax Increase," Tax Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(1), pages 71-120.
    12. Adam Looney & Monica Singhal, 2005. "The effect of anticipated tax changes on intertemporal labor supply and the realization of taxable income," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2005-44, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    13. Peter Diamond & Emmanuel Saez, 2011. "The Case for a Progressive Tax: From Basic Research to Policy Recommendations," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 25(4), pages 165-190, Fall.
    14. Erich Battistin & Agar Brugiavini & Enrico Rettore & Guglielmo Weber, 2009. "The Retirement Consumption Puzzle: Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(5), pages 2209-2226, December.
    15. Raj Chetty, 2009. "Sufficient Statistics for Welfare Analysis: A Bridge Between Structural and Reduced-Form Methods," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 451-488, May.
    16. Frydman, Carola & Molloy, Raven S., 2011. "Does tax policy affect executive compensation? Evidence from postwar tax reforms," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(11), pages 1425-1437.
    17. Emmanuel Saez, 2004. "Reported Incomes and Marginal Tax Rates, 1960–2000: Evidence and Policy Implications," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 18, pages 117-174, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Emmanuel Saez & Joel Slemrod & Seth H. Giertz, 2012. "The Elasticity of Taxable Income with Respect to Marginal Tax Rates: A Critical Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 50(1), pages 3-50, March.
    19. Richard Burkhauser & Shuaizhang Feng & Stephen Jenkins & Jeff Larrimore, 2009. "Recent Trends in Top Income Shares in the USA: Reconciling Estimates from March CPS and IRS Tax Return Data," Working Papers 09-26, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    20. Aspen Gorry & Kevin A. Hassett & R. Glenn Hubbard & Aparna Mathur, 2017. "The Response of Deferred Executive Compensation to Changes in Tax Rates," NBER Chapters, in: Personal Income Taxation and Household Behavior (TAPES), National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies
    • H26 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Tax Evasion and Avoidance
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J33 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Compensation Packages; Payment Methods
    • M10 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:104:y:2014:i:5:p:154-58. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.