IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/euract/v26y2017i3p581-601.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Simplified Tax Accounting and the Choice of Legal Form

Author

Listed:
  • Sören M. Bergner
  • Jost H. Heckemeyer

Abstract

This study investigates whether the ability to choose simplified methods of tax accounting is an important consideration in legal form decisions. Most European countries provide simplified, cash-based rules of tax accounting for small firms that considerably deviate from their general accrual tax accounting rules. The small business sector is thereby sought to be protected from disproportionally high compliance burdens. Simplified tax accounting, however, is only available for non-corporate businesses. If simplified tax accounting is indeed associated with a net benefit, its (un-)availability can change the relative gain to incorporation. We test this conjecture using data on corporate shares of business in 27 European countries over the period 2004–2010. Exploiting variation in eligibility thresholds for simplified tax accounting over time, the results suggest that small businesses indeed consider the option to choose simplified tax accounting in their choice of legal form.

Suggested Citation

  • Sören M. Bergner & Jost H. Heckemeyer, 2017. "Simplified Tax Accounting and the Choice of Legal Form," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(3), pages 581-601, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:euract:v:26:y:2017:i:3:p:581-601
    DOI: 10.1080/09638180.2016.1264881
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09638180.2016.1264881
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/09638180.2016.1264881?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Miguel Almunia & David Lopez-Rodriguez, 2014. "Heterogeneous Responses to Effective Tax Enforcement: Evidence from Spanish Firms," Working Papers 1412, Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation.
    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. Lejour, Arjan & Massenz, Gabriella, 2020. "Income Shifting and Organizational Form Choice : Evidence from Europe," Other publications TiSEM 3138edef-d645-4113-9981-3, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    2. Białek-Jaworska Anna & Opolski Krzysztof, 2018. "Provision of Loans as a Strategic Choice of an Enterprise," Financial Internet Quarterly (formerly e-Finanse), Sciendo, vol. 14(1), pages 12-26, March.
    3. Kay Blaufus & Franziska Hoffmann, 2020. "The effect of simplified cash accounting on tax and financial accounting compliance costs," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 90(2), pages 173-205, March.
    4. Tazhitdinova, Alisa, 2020. "Are changes of organizational form costly? Income shifting and business entry responses to taxes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    5. Massenz, Gabriella, 2023. "On the behavioral effects of tax policy," Other publications TiSEM eb44a9f7-b859-480d-b2e4-4, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.

    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. Li Liu & Ben Lockwood, 2015. "VAT notches," Working Papers 1506, Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation.
    2. Oronde Small & Leanora Brown, 2020. "Taxpayer Service Provision and Tax Compliance: Evidence for Large Taxpayers in Jamaica," Public Finance Review, , vol. 48(2), pages 250-277, March.
    3. Miguel Almunia & David Lopez-Rodriguez, 2018. "Under the Radar: The Effects of Monitoring Firms on Tax Compliance," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 1-38, February.
    4. Pedro J. Hernández, 2020. "Reassessing the link between firm size and exports," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 10(2), pages 207-223, June.
    5. Christoph Engel, 2016. "Experimental Criminal Law. A Survey of Contributions from Law, Economics and Criminology," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2016_07, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    6. 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.
    7. Slemrod, Joel & Collins, Brett & Hoopes, Jeffrey L. & Reck, Daniel & Sebastiani, Michael, 2017. "Does credit-card information reporting improve small-business tax compliance?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 1-19.
    8. Laurent Bach, 2015. "Do better entrepreneurs avoid more taxes?," Working Papers 1517, Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation.
    9. Asatryan, Zareh & Peichl, Andreas, 2016. "Responses of firms to tax, administrative and accounting rules: Evidence from Armenia," ZEW Discussion Papers 16-065, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    10. Rrumbullaku, Oltion, 2021. "Firms behavior around tax thresholds in Albania during the 2015 anti-informality campaign - Bunching features, persistence and growth implications," MPRA Paper 112524, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Du, Pengcheng & Zheng, Yi & Wang, Shuxun, 2022. "The minimum wage and the financialization of firms: Evidence from China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    12. Jarkko Harju & Tuomas Matikka & Timo Rauhanen, 2016. "The Effects of Size-Based Regulation on Small Firms: Evidence from VAT Threshold," CESifo Working Paper Series 6115, CESifo.
    13. Hernández Martínez, Pedro Jesús, 2016. "Reassessing the link between firm size and exports," Economics Discussion Papers 2016-25, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    14. Joan Vilá, 2019. "Respuestas en los ingresos frente a un programa de transferencias monetarias: evidencia de un notch a partir de registros administrativos de Uruguay," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 19-07, Instituto de Economía - IECON.
    15. Tazhitdinova, Alisa, 2015. "Reducing Evasion Through Self-Reporting: Theory and Evidence from Charitable Contributions," MPRA Paper 81612, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2017.
    16. Rico Belda, Paz & Cabrer-Borrás, Bernardí, 2021. "La importancia de los factores internos y externos en el éxito empresarial || The importance of internal and external factors in business success," Revista de Métodos Cuantitativos para la Economía y la Empresa = Journal of Quantitative Methods for Economics and Business Administration, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Department of Quantitative Methods for Economics and Business Administration, vol. 32(1), pages 241-256, December.

    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:taf:euract:v:26:y:2017:i:3:p:581-601. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/REAR20 .

    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.