IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jfinan/v64y2009i4p1797-1825.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Analyzing the Tax Benefits from Employee Stock Options

Author

Listed:
  • ILONA BABENKO
  • YURI TSERLUKEVICH

Abstract

Employees tend to exercise stock options when corporate taxable income is high, shifting corporate tax deductions to years with higher tax rates. If firms paid employees the same dollar value in wages instead of stock options, the average annual tax bill for large U.S. companies would increase by $12.6 million, or 9.8%. These direct tax benefits of options increase in the convexity of the tax function. In addition, profitable firms can realize indirect tax benefits because stock options increase debt capacity. Although tax minimization is probably not the main motive for option grants, firms with larger potential tax benefits grant more options.

Suggested Citation

  • Ilona Babenko & Yuri Tserlukevich, 2009. "Analyzing the Tax Benefits from Employee Stock Options," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(4), pages 1797-1825, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jfinan:v:64:y:2009:i:4:p:1797-1825
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.2009.01480.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6261.2009.01480.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1540-6261.2009.01480.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Allen, Jason & Thompson, James R., 2019. "Variable pay: Is it for the worker or the firm?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 551-566.
    2. Robin Döttling & Tomislav Ladika & Enrico Perotti, 2016. "The (Self-)Funding of Intangibles," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 16-093/IV, Tinbergen Institute.
    3. Hongfeng Sun & Chang Liu, 2023. "Employee Stock Ownership Plans and Corporate Environmental Performance: Evidence from China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(2), pages 1-19, January.
    4. Chang, Xin & Fu, Kangkang & Low, Angie & Zhang, Wenrui, 2015. "Non-executive employee stock options and corporate innovation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 168-188.
    5. Hamid Mehran & Alan Morrison & Joel Shapiro, 2011. "Corporate governance and banks: what have we learned from the financial crisis?," Staff Reports 502, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    6. Patrick Bolton & Hamid Mehran & Joel Shapiro, 2015. "Executive Compensation and Risk Taking," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 19(6), pages 2139-2181.
    7. Martin Widdicks & Jinsha Zhao, 2014. "A Model of Equity Based Compensation with Tax," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(7-8), pages 1002-1041, September.
    8. Chen, Tsung-Kang & Liao, Hsien-Hsing & Chi, Cheng-Ming, 2014. "The economic consequences of regulatory changes in employee stock options on corporate bond holders: SFAS No.123R and structural credit model perspectives," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 381-394.
    9. Bird, Andrew, 2018. "Taxation and executive compensation: Evidence from stock options," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(2), pages 285-302.
    10. Dunli Zhang & Ting Zhang & Guanghua Ma, 2020. "Can non‐executive equity incentives reduce internal control ineffectiveness? Evidence from China," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 60(5), pages 4467-4496, December.
    11. Jan Zabojnik, 2014. "Stock-based Compensation Plans And Employee Incentives," Working Paper 1325, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    12. Sun, Qi & Xiaolan, Mindy Z., 2019. "Financing intangible capital," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(2), pages 472-496.
    13. Sun, Lei & Widdicks, Martin, 2016. "Why do employees like to be paid with Options?: A multi-period prospect theory approach," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 106-125.
    14. Mindy X. Zhang & Qi Sun, 2016. "Financing Intangible Capital," 2016 Meeting Papers 230, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    15. Devos, Erik & Rahman, Shofiqur, 2023. "Does labor unemployment insurance affect corporate tax aggressiveness?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    16. Xu, Xixiong & Duan, Lingling, 2023. "Confucianism and employee stock ownership plans: Evidence from Chinese listed firms," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 859-872.

    More about this item

    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:bla:jfinan:v:64:y:2009:i:4:p:1797-1825. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/afaaaea.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.