IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fit/wpaper/15.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Tax planning and investment responses to dividend taxation

Author

Listed:
  • Aliisa Koivisto

    (Finnish Centre of Excellence in Tax Systems Research, VATT Institute for Economic Research)

Abstract

This study explores empirically how business owners respond to dividend taxes in a range of diferent margins including tax planning and investment. Using administrative tax data on all privately held Finnish corporations, I fnd exceptionally clear dividend payment responses to tax rate discontinuities and changes. Heterogeneity analysis suggests that more experienced owners and owners with lower income have higher tax base elasticities. Studying the income composition of owners around tax changes reveals clear income shifting between wage and dividends with negligible efect on gross income received from the frm. Evidence on the asset composition of frms indicates that a notable part of the payment response is due to inter-temporal income-smoothing, while changes in the tax schedule did not cause signifcant real responses in output or investment.

Suggested Citation

  • Aliisa Koivisto, 2023. "Tax planning and investment responses to dividend taxation," Working Papers 15, Finnish Centre of Excellence in Tax Systems Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:fit:wpaper:15
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://verotutkimus.fi/verotutkimus/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/FIT-WP-15-Tax-planning-and-investment-responses-to-dividend-taxation.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2023
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alstadsæter, Annette & Jacob, Martin & Michaely, Roni, 2017. "Do dividend taxes affect corporate investment?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 74-83.
    2. Claus Thustrup Kreiner & Søren Leth-Petersen & Peer Ebbesen Skov, 2016. "Tax Reforms and Intertemporal Shifting of Wage Income: Evidence from Danish Monthly Payroll Records," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 233-257, August.
    3. Jarkko Harju & Tuomas Matikka, 2016. "The elasticity of taxable income and income-shifting: what is “real” and what is not?," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 23(4), pages 640-669, 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. Waldenström, Daniel & Bastani, Spencer, 2020. "The Ability Gradient in Bunching," Working Paper Series 1333, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    2. Harju, Jarkko & Koivisto, Aliisa & Matikka, Tuomas, 2022. "The effects of corporate taxes on small firms," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    3. Carina Neisser, 2021. "The Elasticity of Taxable Income: A Meta-Regression Analysis [The top 1% in international and historical perspective]," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(640), pages 3365-3391.
    4. Hans Schytte Sigaard, 2022. "Labor Supply Responsiveness to Tax Reforms," Economics Working Papers 2022-04, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    5. Kotakorpi Kaisa & Matikka Tuomas, 2017. "Revenue-maximizing top earned income tax rate in the presence of income-shifting," Nordic Tax Journal, Sciendo, vol. 2017(1), pages 100-107, January.
    6. Sigaard, Hans Schytte, 2023. "Estimating labor supply responses to Danish tax reforms," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 224(C).
    7. He, Daixin & Peng, Langchuan & Wang, Xiaxin, 2021. "Understanding the elasticity of taxable income: A tale of two approaches," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    8. Aspen Gorry & Glenn Hubbard & Aparna Mathur, 2021. "The Elasticity of Taxable Income in The Presence of Intertemporal Income Shifting," National Tax Journal, University of Chicago Press, vol. 74(1), pages 45-73.
    9. Mr. Shafik Hebous & Andualem Mengistu, 2024. "Efficient Economic Rent Taxation under a Global Minimum Corporate Tax," IMF Working Papers 2024/057, International Monetary Fund.
    10. Nicole Bosch & Henk-Wim de Boer, 2017. "The Elasticity of Taxable Income for the Self-Employed: Heterogeneity across Reforms and Income Levels," CPB Discussion Paper 354.rdf, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    11. Elert, Niklas & Henrekson, Magnus & Stenkula, Mikael, 2017. "Institutional Reform for Innovation and Entrepreneurship: An Agenda for Europe," Working Paper Series 1150, Research Institute of Industrial Economics, revised 16 Feb 2017.
    12. Kreiner, Claus Thustrup & Leth-Petersen, Søren & Skov, Peer Ebbesen, 2017. "Pension saving responses to anticipated tax changes: Evidence from monthly pension contribution records," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 104-107.
    13. Karuppiah Sankarganesh & K. Rangasamy Shanmugam, 2023. "Effect of corporate income tax on investment decisions of Indian manufacturing firms," Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(1), pages 156-175, January.
    14. Alstadsæter, Annette & Jacob, Martin & Michaely, Roni, 2017. "Do dividend taxes affect corporate investment?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 74-83.
    15. Philipp Doerrenberg & Andreas Peichl & Sebastian Siegloch, 2017. "The Elasticity of Taxable Income in the Presence of Deduction Possibilities," NBER Chapters, in: Personal Income Taxation and Household Behavior (TAPES), National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Adrien Matray & Charles Boissel, 2020. "Higher Dividend Taxes, No Problem! Evidence from Taxing Entrepreneurs in France," Working Papers 276, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    17. Pham, Ngoc-Sang, 2017. "Dividend taxation in an infinite-horizon general equilibrium model," MPRA Paper 80580, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Kristoffer Berg & Thor O. Thoresen, 2020. "Problematic response margins in the estimation of the elasticity of taxable income," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 27(3), pages 721-752, June.
    19. Ruhollah Eskandari & Morteza Zamanian, 2023. "Heterogeneous responses to corporate marginal tax rates: Evidence from small and large firms," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(7), pages 1018-1047, November.
    20. Florian Buhlmann & Benjamin Elsner & Andreas Peichl, 2018. "Tax refunds and income manipulation: evidence from the EITC," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 25(6), pages 1490-1518, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Dividend taxation; investment; income shifting; bunching;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G38 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies
    • H25 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Business Taxes and Subsidies

    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:fit:wpaper:15. 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: Marjukka Hourunranta (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fitsrfi.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.