IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fer/wpaper/93.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The effects of tax-deductible reserves on investment incentives

Author

Listed:
  • Kari, Seppo

Abstract

This paper investigates how tax-deductible reserves affect the incentive to invest. We consider two different variants: a periodization reserve (PER), which allows the firm to defer tax payments for a certain number of years, and an investment reserve (IVR), which postpones tax payments but has the particular goal of allowing the firm to finance investments from untaxed funds. The latter is assumed to include a penalty levied if the reserve is not used to cover investment. We find that PER lowers the effective tax rate and produces a smaller reduction in the firm’s cost of capital. The impacts of IVR are more complex. With a low penalty, its effects equal those of PER. In both cases they could be mimicked more easily by a reduction in statutory tax rate. However, with a high penalty and high ceiling for allocations, IVR equals a neutral cash flow tax. Similarly, if the firm distributes maximum dividends (binding dividend constraint), both PER and IVR are investment neutral. These neutrality results only concern investment financed from retained profits.

Suggested Citation

  • Kari, Seppo, 2017. "The effects of tax-deductible reserves on investment incentives," Working Papers 93, VATT Institute for Economic Research.
  • Handle: RePEc:fer:wpaper:93
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.doria.fi/handle/10024/148930
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Giorgia Maffini & Jing Xing & Michael P Devereux, 2016. "The impact of investment incentives: evidence from UK corporation tax returns," Working Papers 1601, Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation.
    2. Bond, Stephen & Van Reenen, John, 2007. "Microeconometric Models of Investment and Employment," Handbook of Econometrics, in: J.J. Heckman & E.E. Leamer (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 6, chapter 65, Elsevier.
    3. Bond, Stephen & Xing, Jing, 2015. "Corporate taxation and capital accumulation: Evidence from sectoral panel data for 14 OECD countries," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 15-31.
    4. Lindhe, Tobias, 2002. "Methods of Mitigating Double Taxation," Working Paper Series 2002:8, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    5. Kanniainen, Vesa & Sodersten, Jan, 1995. "The importance of reporting conventions for the theory of corporate taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(3), pages 417-430, July.
    6. Giorgia Maffini & Jing Xing & Michael P. Devereux, 2019. "The Impact of Investment Incentives: Evidence from UK Corporation Tax Returns," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 361-389, August.
    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. Eichfelder, Sebastian & Kluska, Mike & Knaisch, Jonas & Selle, Juliane, 2021. "Senkung der Unternehmenssteuerlast versus Förderung von Investitionen: Was ist die bessere Strategie zur Förderung der Standortattraktivität Deutschlands?," arqus Discussion Papers in Quantitative Tax Research 263, arqus - Arbeitskreis Quantitative Steuerlehre.
    2. Eichfelder, Sebastian & Kluska, Mike & Knaisch, Jonas & Selle, Juliane, 2021. "Senkung der Unternehmenssteuerlast versus Förderung von Investitionen: Was ist die bessere Strategie zur Förderung der Standortattraktivität Deutschlands?," arqus Discussion Papers in Quantitative Tax Research 266, arqus - Arbeitskreis Quantitative Steuerlehre.
    3. Lerche, Adrian, 2019. "Investment Tax Credits and the Response of Firms," VfS Annual Conference 2019 (Leipzig): 30 Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall - Democracy and Market Economy 203526, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    4. Ligia Alba Melo-Becerra & Héctor Zárate-Solano & Andrés Camilo Gómez-Molina, 2018. "Elasticidad del ingreso corporativo gravable en Colombia," Borradores de Economia 1046, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    5. Daniel G. Garrett & Eric Ohrn & Juan Carlos Suárez Serrato, 2020. "Tax Policy and Local Labor Market Behavior," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 83-100, March.
    6. Ligia Alba Melo-Becerra & Javier Ávila Mahecha & Jorge Enrique Ramos-Forero, 2017. "The Effect of Corporate Taxes on Investment: Evidence from the Colombian Firms," IHEID Working Papers 10-2017, Economics Section, The Graduate Institute of International Studies.
    7. Creedy, John & Gemmell, Norman, 2017. "Effective tax rates and the user cost of capital when interest rates are low," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 82-87.
    8. Harju, Jarkko & Koivisto, Aliisa & Matikka, Tuomas, 2022. "The effects of corporate taxes on small firms," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    9. Fabien Candau & Jacques Le Cacheux, 2018. "Taming Tax Competition with a European Corporate Income Tax," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 128(4), pages 575-611.
    10. Ernesto Zangari, 2020. "An economic assessment of the evolution of the corporate tax system in Italy," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1291, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    11. Hazans, Mihails & Pluta, Anna, 2020. "Tax incentives to encourage corporate investment in Latvia," MPRA Paper 118601, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Giorgia Maffini & Jing Xing & Michael P Devereux, 2016. "The impact of investment incentives: evidence from UK corporation tax returns," Working Papers 1601, Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation.
    13. Lerche, Adrian, 2022. "Investment Tax Credits and the Response of Firms," IZA Discussion Papers 15668, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Zhao Chen & Yuxuan He & Zhikuo Liu & Juan Carlos Suárez Serrato & Daniel Yi Xu, 2021. "The Structure of Business Taxation in China," Tax Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 35(1), pages 131-177.
    15. Eichfelder, Sebastian & Jacob, Martin & Schneider, Kerstin, 2023. "Do tax incentives affect investment quality?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    16. Fatica, Serena, 2018. "Business capital accumulation and the user cost: Is there a heterogeneity bias?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 15-34.
    17. Eichfelder, Sebastian & Knaisch, Jonas & Schneider, Kerstin, 2023. "How does bonus depreciation affect real investment? Effect size, asset structure, and tax planning," arqus Discussion Papers in Quantitative Tax Research 278, arqus - Arbeitskreis Quantitative Steuerlehre.
    18. Sebastian Eichfelder & Jonathan Hoke, 2020. "Steuerpolitik in der COVID-19-Krise [Tax Policy in the COVID-19 Crisis]," Wirtschaftsdienst, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 100(10), pages 767-773, October.
    19. Yongzheng Liu & Jie Mao, 2019. "How Do Tax Incentives Affect Investment and Productivity? Firm-Level Evidence from China," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 261-291, August.
    20. Michael Devereux & Li Liu, 2016. "Stimulating investment through incorporation," Working Papers 1607, Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    corporate taxation; international corporate taxation; investment incentives; Business regulation and international economics; H25; H32;
    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

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:fer:wpaper:93. 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: Anita Niskanen (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vatttfi.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.