IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_348.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Optimal Taxation of Dividends in a Small Open Economy

Author

Listed:
  • Clemens Fuest
  • Bernd Huber

Abstract

This paper analyses the optimal taxation of dividends and other types of income from portfolio investment. We show that, in an open economy, it is not desirable to offer double taxation relief for dividends paid by domestic firms to domestic households. This result holds for fairly general utility functions. The reason is that the marginal shareholder in domestic firms is a foreign investor. This implies that the level of real investment is not affected by the taxation of domestic dividend income at the household level. A reduction of the tax burden on dividends is therefore merely an undesirable subsidy on domestic asset holdings. Our results also extend the literature on the optimal taxation of risky asset income in general.

Suggested Citation

  • Clemens Fuest & Bernd Huber, 2000. "The Optimal Taxation of Dividends in a Small Open Economy," CESifo Working Paper Series 348, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_348
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo_wp348.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gordon, Roger H. & Varian, Hal R., 1989. "Taxation of asset income in the presence of a world securities market," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(3-4), pages 205-226, May.
    2. Boadway, Robin & Bruce, Neil, 1992. "Problems with integrating corporate and personal income taxes in an open economy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 39-66, June.
    3. Roger H. Gordon, 1985. "Taxation of Corporate Capital Income: Tax Revenues Versus Tax Distortions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 100(1), pages 1-27.
    4. Michael Devereux & Harold Freeman, 1995. "The impact of tax on foreign direct investment: Empirical evidence and the implications for tax integration schemes," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 2(1), pages 85-106, February.
    5. Wolfram Richter, 1992. "The optimal taxation of risky capital income: An elasticity rule," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 55(1), pages 101-111, February.
    6. Joseph E. Stiglitz, 1982. "The Inefficiency of the Stock Market Equilibrium," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 49(2), pages 241-261.
    7. Christiansen, Vidar, 1995. "Normative Aspects of Differential, State-Contingent Capital Income Taxation," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 47(2), pages 286-301, April.
    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. Michael P. Devereux & Peter Birch Sørensen, 2006. "The Corporate Income Tax: international trends and options for fundamental reform," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 264, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    2. Seppo Kari & Jouko Ylä-Liedenpoha, 2002. "Classical Corporation Tax as a Global Means of Tax Harmonization," CESifo Working Paper Series 665, CESifo.
    3. Jarkko Harju & Seppo Kari, 2017. "Dividend Taxes and Decisions of MNEs: Evidence from a Finnish Tax Reform," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 63(1), pages 45-77.
    4. Reuven Avi-Yonah, 2005. "The Pitfalls of International Integration: A Comment on the Bush Proposal and its Aftermath," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 12(1), pages 87-95, January.
    5. Reuven Avi-Yonah, "undated". "The Pitfalls of International Integration: A Comment on the Bush Proposal and Its Aftermath," University of Michigan John M. Olin Center for Law & Economics Working Paper Series umichlwps-1007, University of Michigan John M. Olin Center for Law & Economics.
    6. Dickescheid, Thomas, 2002. "Steuerwettbewerb und Direktinvestitionen," Beiträge zur Finanzwissenschaft, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, edition 1, volume 16, number urn:isbn:9783161477348, May.

    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. Gordon, Roger H. & Hines, James Jr, 2002. "International taxation," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 28, pages 1935-1995, Elsevier.
    2. Mikael Apel & Jan Södersten, 1999. "Personal Taxation and Investment Incentives in a Small Open Economy," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 6(1), pages 79-88, February.
    3. Dirk Schindler, 2008. "Taxing Risky Capital Income - A Commodity Taxation Approach," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 64(3), pages 311-333, September.
    4. Anna P. Kireyenko, 2015. "Methods of investigating taxation in today’s foreign literature," Journal of Tax Reform, Graduate School of Economics and Management, Ural Federal University, vol. 1(2-3), pages 209-228.
    5. Jespersen, Jesper, 2005. "Debat og kommentarer: Keynes-inspireret makroøkonomisk teori," Nationaløkonomisk tidsskrift, Nationaløkonomisk Forening, vol. 2005(1), pages 104-121.
    6. Tobias Lindhe & Jan Södersten, 2012. "The Norwegian shareholder tax reconsidered," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 19(3), pages 424-441, June.
    7. Jarkko Harju & Seppo Kari, 2017. "Dividend Taxes and Decisions of MNEs: Evidence from a Finnish Tax Reform," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 63(1), pages 45-77.
    8. Albæk, Karsten, 2005. "Om lærepladsspørgsmålet," Nationaløkonomisk tidsskrift, Nationaløkonomisk Forening, vol. 2005(1), pages 1-25.
    9. Chung, Soon Mok & Wilson, John Douglas, 1997. "The optimal taxation of interregionally mobile capital under uncertainty," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(4-5), pages 475-496, August.
    10. Abildgren, Kim, 2005. "Interest-Rate Development in Denmark 1875-2003 – A Survey," Nationaløkonomisk tidsskrift, Nationaløkonomisk Forening, vol. 2005(1), pages 153-167.
    11. Hansen, Lars Gårn & Krarup, Signe, 2005. "Bør virksomheder oplyses om sandsynligheden for kontrol?," Nationaløkonomisk tidsskrift, Nationaløkonomisk Forening, vol. 2005(1), pages 43-64.
    12. Martin Jacob & Jan Södersten, 2013. "Mitigating Shareholder Taxation in Small Open Economies?," Finnish Economic Papers, Finnish Economic Association, vol. 26(1), pages 1-12, Spring.
    13. Seppo Kari & Jouko Ylä-Liedenpohja, 2005. "Effects of an Equalization Tax on Multinational Investments and Transfer Pricing," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 61(1), pages 45-61, March.
    14. Schindler, Dirk, 2003. "Optimal Income Taxation with a Risky Asset: The Triple Income Tax," CoFE Discussion Papers 03/11, University of Konstanz, Center of Finance and Econometrics (CoFE).
    15. Bentzen, Jan & Smith, Valdemar, 2005. "Short-run and long-run relationships in the consumption of alcohol in the Scandinavian countries," Nationaløkonomisk tidsskrift, Nationaløkonomisk Forening, vol. 2005(1), pages 65-80.
    16. Kalamov, Zarko Y., 2013. "Risk sharing and the efficiency of public good provision under tax competition," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(4), pages 676-683.
    17. Bo Nielsen, Soren, 1998. "On capital income tax policies under uncertainty," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(8), pages 1553-1580, September.
    18. Peter Birch Sørensen, 2006. "Can Capital Income Taxes Survive? And Should They?," EPRU Working Paper Series 06-06, Economic Policy Research Unit (EPRU), University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    19. Andersen, Torben M. & Pedersen, Lars Haagen, 2005. "Debatten om fremtidens velfærd - Demografi, velstandsdilemma og makroøkonomiske strategier," Nationaløkonomisk tidsskrift, Nationaløkonomisk Forening, vol. 2005(1), pages 189-229.
    20. Andersen, Jørgen Goul, 2005. "Splinten og bjælken," Nationaløkonomisk tidsskrift, Nationaløkonomisk Forening, vol. 2005(1), pages 258-264.

    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:_348. 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.