IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_3261.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Taxes and Financial Reporting: Evidence from Discretionary Investment Write-Offs in Italy

Author

Listed:
  • Giampaolo Arachi
  • Valeria Bucci

Abstract

This paper provides further empirical evidence on the relationship between taxes and financial reporting by focusing on accounting decisions to write-offs equity investments. The analysis is based on panel data for Italian companies. In the period 1998-2006 the Italian corporate income tax has been reformed several times. In particular the tax deductibility of write-offs of equity investment was repealed in 2004. The paper exploits the ensuing high cross-sectional and times series variation in the marginal tax rate to identify tax effects. The econometric analysis delivers strong evidence that taxes affect the probability of write-offs. In contrast there is no evidence that taxes affect the magnitude of the write-offs. The paper also tests for the existence of a trade-off between tax minimization and non tax costs such as financial reporting costs and agency costs. Surprisingly, the evidence of such trade-off is rather weak.

Suggested Citation

  • Giampaolo Arachi & Valeria Bucci, 2010. "Taxes and Financial Reporting: Evidence from Discretionary Investment Write-Offs in Italy," CESifo Working Paper Series 3261, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_3261
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp3261.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. MacKie-Mason, Jeffrey K, 1990. "Do Taxes Affect Corporate Financing Decisions?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(5), pages 1471-1493, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Jennifer Blouin & Harry Huizinga & Luc Laeven & Gaëtan Nicodème, 2013. "Thin capitalization rules and multinational firm capital structure," Working Papers 1323, Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation.
    2. Takeo Hoshi & Anil Kashyap & David Scharfstein, 1993. "The Choice Between Public and Private Debt: An Analysis of Post-Deregulation Corporate Financing in Japan," NBER Working Papers 4421, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Bruno Biais & Christophe Bisiere & Jean-Paul Decamps, 2000. "A Structural Econometric Investigation of the Agency Theory of Financial Structure," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 0817, Econometric Society.
    4. Duca, Eric & Dutordoir, Marie & Veld, Chris & Verwijmeren, Patrick, 2012. "Why are convertible bond announcements associated with increasingly negative issuer stock returns? An arbitrage-based explanation," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(11), pages 2884-2899.
    5. Ebenezer Bugri Anarfo, 2015. "Determinants of Capital Structure of Banks: Evidence from Sub-Sahara Africa," Asian Economic and Financial Review, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 5(4), pages 624-640, April.
    6. Zhao, Hong & Shen, Hao & Wang, Haizhi & Zhu, Yun, 2024. "State corporate tax changes and bond pricing: U.S. evidence," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    7. Martin Ruf, 2010. "Holdings als Mittel der Steuerplanung zur Implementierung von steuerlich motiviertem Fremdkapital," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 62(8), pages 883-910, December.
    8. Shai Levi & Benjamin Segal, 2015. "The Impact of Debt-Equity Reporting Classifications on the Firm's Decision to Issue Hybrid Securities," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(4), pages 801-822, December.
    9. Dang, Viet Anh & Kim, Minjoo & Shin, Yongcheol, 2014. "Asymmetric adjustment toward optimal capital structure: Evidence from a crisis," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 226-242.
    10. Georg Wamser, 2014. "The Impact of Thin-Capitalization Rules on External Debt Usage – A Propensity Score Matching Approach," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 76(5), pages 764-781, October.
    11. Buettner, Thiess & Overesch, Michael & Schreiber, Ulrich & Wamser, Georg, 2009. "Taxation and capital structure choice--Evidence from a panel of German multinationals," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 105(3), pages 309-311, December.
    12. An Yan & Debarshi Nandy & Thomas Chemmanur, 2004. "Why Issue Mandatory Convertibles? Theory and Empirical Evidence," Econometric Society 2004 North American Winter Meetings 456, Econometric Society.
    13. John R. Graham & Sonali Hazarika & Krishnamoorthy Narasimhan, 2011. "Corporate Governance, Debt, and Investment Policy During the Great Depression," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(12), pages 2083-2100, December.
    14. Leimbach, Marian & Edenhofer, Ottmar, 2005. "Capital mobility and spillovers within a modular approach to multi-region modeling," Conference papers 331342, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    15. K. Kestens & P. Van Cauwenberge & J. Christiaens & -, 2010. "An Investigation of the Effect of the Notional Interest Deduction on the Capital Structure of Belgian SMEs," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 10/640, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    16. Wiwattanakantang, Yupana, 1999. "An empirical study on the determinants of the capital structure of Thai firms," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 7(3-4), pages 371-403, August.
    17. Levinsohn, James & MacKie-Mason, Jeffrey K, 1990. "A Simple, Consistent Estimator for Disturbance Components in Financial Models," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 72(3), pages 516-520, August.
    18. Monda, Barbara & Giorgino, Marco & Modolin, Ileana, 2013. "Rationales for Corporate Risk Management - A Critical Literature Review," MPRA Paper 45420, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Thomas Hemmelgarn & Daniel Teichmann, 2014. "Tax reforms and the capital structure of banks," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 21(4), pages 645-693, August.
    20. M. Dutordoir & L. Van De Gucht, 2004. "Are European Convertibles More Debt-Like than the US Issues? An Empirical Analysis," Review of Business and Economic Literature, KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Review of Business and Economic Literature, vol. 0(4), pages 533-568.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    corporate taxation; write-offs of equity investments; financial reporting; tax planning;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H25 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Business Taxes and Subsidies
    • H32 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Firm
    • K34 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Tax Law
    • M41 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting - - - Accounting

    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:ces:ceswps:_3261. 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: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.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.