How Quickly Do Firms Adjust to Optimal Levels of Tax Avoidance?

The trade‐off literature asserts that managers weigh the direct benefits of tax avoidance against the associated nontax costs. This literature implies each firm has a unique optimal level of tax avoidance that balances these costs and benefits. Our study is the first to document how quickly the average firm moves toward its optimal level of tax avoidance. We find that the typical firm converges toward its optimum at a rate that ranges from approximately 69 to 84 percent over a three‐year period, depending upon model specifications. Consistent with asymmetric levels of frictions across the tax avoidance distribution, we find the speed of adjustment is greater for firms below their optimal level of tax avoidance than for firms above. We perform additional cross‐sectional analyses to provide insight into some of the frictions that prevent firms from adjusting completely to their optimal level of tax avoidance. We generally find growth firms exhibit slower adjustment speeds and provide limited evidence that both multinational firms and income‐mobile firms exhibit faster adjustment speeds.     

Competitiveness and Subsidy or Tax Policy for New Technology Adoption in Duopoly

We consider a problem of subsidy or tax policy for new technology adoption by duopolistic firms. The technology is developed in and transferred by a foreign country to the domestic country. It is free but each firm must expend some fixed set-up cost for education of its staff to adopt and use it. Assuming that each firm maximizes the weighted average of absolute and relative profits, we examine the relationship between competitiveness and subsidy or tax policies for technology adoption, and show that when firm behavior is not competitive (the weight on the relative profit is small), the optimal policy of the government may be taxation; when firm behavior is competitive (the weight on the relative profit is large), the optimal policy is subsidization or inaction and not taxation. However, if firm behavior is extremely competitive (close to perfect competition), taxation case re-emerges.     

【学界视点】营业税还是增值税：企业选择的逻辑基础

以企业为基础的分析单位,文章尝试从公共选择理论的视角,考察单个企业对营业税和增值税制度的选择行为及其逻辑基础。结论表明,在对经济预期稳定的情况下,企业更加偏好于增值税,而在经济处于波动的预期中将更加偏好于营业税。     

A fisherian analysis of individual retirement accounts

Conclusions This paper has employed a Fisherian analysis of intertemporal choice to evaluate the use of IRA's. The analysis shows that with perfect capital markets assumptions, the presence of IRA's will generate no other effect on savings than would a simple tax rabate. Further, it shows that if the tax revenue loss due to IRA's is not accompanied by an expenditure reduction, but is financed with taxes or borrowing, rational households will still employ IRA's, but their effect on intertemporal choice will be nil. The analysis also shows that IRA's do act as a savings incentive to the extent that there are market imperfections, specifically to the degree that transactions costs are important. However, empirical evidence from the literature does not lend firm support to this possibility. The conclusion is that a market imperfection is not a firm basis on which to construct savings incentives. Finally, one can note that the same analysis applies to any tax-based savings incentive that is designed to operate by lowering the tax on interest income. The reason for this finding is that the provision of tax sheltered interest income, along with the deductibility of interest on borrowing, creates general tax arbitrage opportunities for households and that tax arbitrage opportunities do not, in general, generate greater savings in an intertemporal choice model. It follows that significant restriction or elimination of the deductibility of interest on borrowing is a prerequisite for IRA's and other tax based savings incentives to produce their intended effect.     

Impact of Competition and Taxes on Responsibility Center Organization and Transfer Prices*

We show that a firm can use its decentralized organizational structure and transfer price as commitment devices to obtain strategic advantage in the product market only when there are nonstrategic reasons to decentralize and to distort transfer prices away from marginal costs, such as the sales office's local knowledge about market conditions and the presence of tax rate differentials across the two tax jurisdictions. Surprisingly, an increase in the sales office's tax rates may help a firm increase overall profits. An increase in the sales office's tax rates causes the firm to increase its transfer price, which in turn dampens the sales office's competition and may more than offset the effect of increased tax rates on the firm's overall profits.     

A choice‐theoretic analysis of a corporate tax holiday versus a subsidy

This paper attempts to compare the effect of a corporate tax holiday with that of a subsidy on the behaviour of the individual firm. Assuming the subsidy equals the amount of tax paid by a firm operating under the subsidy system, we find that the firm's net profit will be greater under the tax holiday than under the subsidy regime. Similarly, if the subsidy exceeds the tax by an amount that would equalize the profits made by the (“marginal”) firm under the two regimes, then it is found that firms with higher than “average” unit costs would opt for the subsidy system; conversely, firms with a low cost structure would maximize profits by selecting the tax holiday. Finally, a multiperiod analysis of the particular choice facing prospective manufacturers in Ciskei, shows that the firm would normally choose the subsidy system except if the current tax exceeded the subsidy at the output level representing maximum profit under the tax holiday.     

Tax Loss Carryovers in a Competitive Environment*

The fact that incumbent firms can immediately deduct research and development (R&D) investments from taxable income is generally believed to give them a strategic advantage over new firms that cannot deduct the investment cost, but instead generate a net operating tax loss carryover. Using an analytical model, we show that this conventional wisdom need not hold in a competitive environment. We examine operating and investment decisions in a duopolistic industry in which an initial investment in R&D yields an immediate tax benefit for one firm, but creates a net operating loss carryover for the other firm. If both firms invest in R&D, the firm with the net operating loss carryover makes more aggressive capital investment decisions following successful R&D. This may deter the incumbent firm from investing in R&D despite the lower aftertax costs of this investment. Changing the tax loss carryover rules would thus not only affects start‐up or loss firms, but would also affect the investment decisions of profitable firms in the same industry.     

Is there Regional Tax Competition? Firm Level Evidence for Belgium

Summary This is the first paper that looks at regional tax competition within one single country. In many countries in Europe, regions within a country differ substantially in their economic development and attractiveness to firms. Belgium is a typical example of a country where the economic situation of its three regions is very different. Our findings are indicative of regional tax competition, with a lower Effective Tax Rate (ETR) in the peripheral region of Wallonia than in Flanders. In addition to location variables, our empirical model explaining firm level heterogeneity in ETRs includes firm characteristics, sector membership and variables capturing statutory tax breaks. We thank the Research Council of the Catholic University of Leuven for funding this research. A special thanks goes to Jozef Konings, Willem Buijink, Laurence van Lent, Wim Moesen, Christophe Croux and Frans Vanistendael, for providing useful feedback on this project. We also thank participants of a LICOS-K.U.Leuven seminar and a doctoral workshop at the Universities of Maastricht and Antwerp for useful comments.     

Transfer Pricing: Strategies,Practices, and Tax Minimization

Using a survey of tax executives from multinational corporations, we document that some firms set their transfer pricing strategy to minimize tax payments, but more firms focus on tax compliance. We estimate that a firm focusing on minimizing taxes has a GAAP effective tax rate that is 6.6 percentage points lower and generates about $43 million more in tax savings, on average, than a firm focusing on tax compliance. Available COMPUSTAT data on sample firms confirm our survey‐based inferences. We also find that transfer pricing‐related tax savings are greater when higher foreign income, tax haven use, and R&D activities are combined with a tax minimization strategy. Finally, compliance‐focused firms report lower FIN 48 tax reserves than tax‐minimizing firms, consistent with the former group using less uncertain transfer pricing arrangements. Collectively, our study provides direct evidence that multinational firms have differing internal priorities for transfer pricing, and that these differences are strongly related to the taxes reported by these firms.     

固定支付方式下ICT推动节能减排的策略研究

ICT推动工业企业节能减排,实现绿色低碳发展,需要ICT低碳技术研发商、工业企业和政府的协同努力。考虑研发商和工业企业面对的研发和市场不确定性,分析二者通过固定支付方式合作时各自的最优投入,给出政府的激励和监管策略。研究表明ICT低碳技术研发商的最优投入与工业企业的买断费用、政府的资金资助和惩罚力度有关,而工业企业的最优投入仅与政府的税收优惠有关。增加买断费用或政府资金资助和惩罚,能够激励ICT低碳技术研发商提高其最优投入;增加政府税收优惠能够提高工业企业的最优投入;但需合理设置买断费用和政府经费资助的首期拨付比例以防范ICT低碳技术研发商的道德风险。     

Corruption as an Occupational Choice: Endogenous Corruption and Tax Policy

Corruption is endemic in many countries, and empirical studies have demonstrated how it impacts on macroeconomic indicators. Theoretical studies have generally assumed an exogenously given proportion of the population are corrupt or that the public sector is fixed in size; far fewer explore how corruption emerges endogenously. We endogenize corruption as an occupational choice. Workers choose private or public employment; public employees can be honest or corrupt. Corruption is subject to a social sanction that results in a loss of self-esteem. Those who care little about the social sanction choose to be corrupt. When a firm meets a corrupt public employee it pays a bribe to secure a reduction in the tax rate. The economy has two self-sustaining equilibria with different levels of corruption. Corruption reduces tax revenue and the tax rate that maximizes revenue. An increase in the social sanction reduces corruption but also reduces tax revenues if the economy is in a high-corruption equilibrium. Paying a wage premium to public sector workers can result in all public sector workers being corrupt. Public sector audits to detect corrupt workers always reduce corruption but can only increase welfare when they are cheap to conduct and the economy is in a low-corruption equilibrium.     

Does Tax Planning Affect Analysts' Forecast Accuracy?

We investigate whether firms' tax planning affects the accuracy of analysts' forecasts. Tax planning can exacerbate the complexity of firms' operations through strategic choices to exploit tax laws. Because of its effect on firms' operations, tax planning can influence analysts' efforts to understand and forecast earnings. Specifically, if the additional complexity arising from tax planning makes firm attributes less representative of expected earnings, analysts may issue less accurate forecasts. Using auditor‐provided tax services (APTS) as a measure of tax planning, we find that, as firms spend more on tax planning, the accuracy of analysts' forecasts of both earnings per share and tax expense declines. We also document that firms with higher levels of APTS have greater year‐to‐year volatility in, and lower persistence of, effective tax rates and earnings. Our results suggest that increased firm complexity, due to greater tax planning, makes earnings and tax expense more difficult to forecast and that analysts do not properly adjust for these effects. Thus, when deciding to engage in tax planning, firms appear to make trade‐offs between potential tax savings and negative effects on earnings properties and analysts' forecasts.     

国外环境税法律制度的发展实践及对我国的启示

在不断加重的环境危机的挑战下，运用环境税手段来保护环境成为许多发达国家的制度选择。经过初步萌动、形成发展和成熟完善等三个阶段的发展，国外环境税法律制度形成了丰富的内容体系，包括污染税、资源税和生态税等税种以及其他有利于环保的相关税种和税收措施。国外环境税法律制度的发展实践取得了多方面的积极效果，对我国有着积极的启示     

垂直产品差异、外国企业纵向控制与研发政策

在Spencer和Brander(1983)模型的基础上,本文引入产品纵向控制因素,考虑生产高质量产品的非一体化企业与另一国生产低质量产品的一体化企业进行市场竞争时,政府的最优研发政策。在企业进行Cournot竞争的情形下,若产品质量差异较大(小),非一体化企业所在国政府的最优研发政策为征税(补贴),而在企业进行Bertrand竞争的情形下,非一体化企业所在国政府的最优研发策略则是征税。     

Choice of flexible production technologies under strategic delegation

This paper analyzes a managerial delegation model in which firms can choose between a flexible production technology which allows them to produce two different products and a dedicated production technology which limits production to only one product. We analyze whether the incentives to adopt the flexible technology are smaller or greater in a managerial delegation model than under strict profit maximization. We obtain that the asymmetric equilibrium in which only one firm adopts the flexible technology can be sustained under strategic delegation but not under strict profit maximization when products are substitutes. We extend the analysis to consider welfare implications.     

Strategic corporate social responsibility of high-speed rail in China

This paper investigates the strategic corporate social responsibility (CSR) of a high-speed rail (HSR) firm when competing with an airline firm in a differentiated transportation market and the interactions with government environmental policies in the context of a Cournot–Bertrand comparison. We find that a standard CSR chosen by the government is lower under Cournot than that under Bertrand when both the marginal cost of HSR and product substitutability are low enough, while a voluntary CSR chosen by the HSR operator is always higher under Cournot than that under Bertrand. We also find that the voluntary CSR could be higher or lower than the standard CSR, depending on marginal costs, product substitutability, and competition modes. We then show that when the government imposes an environmental tax together with CSR activities, both the strategic CSR and environmental tax are always lower under Cournot than those under Bertrand. Finally, we show that equilibrium traffic volumes, ticket fares, consumer welfare, and social welfare are independent of competition modes with environmental tax.     

Conflicting Transfer Pricing Incentives and the Role of Coordination

Our study evaluates the role of coordination, at both the government and the firm level, on the transfer prices set by U.S. multinational corporations (MNCs) when income taxes and duties cannot be jointly minimized with a single transfer price. We find that either the presence of a coordinated income tax and customs enforcement regime or coordination between the income tax and customs functions alters transfer prices for these firms. Our analyses have implications for both firms and taxing authorities. Specifically, our findings suggest that MNCs might decrease their aggregate tax burdens by increasing coordination within the firm or that governments might increase their aggregate revenues by improving coordinating enforcement across taxing authorities. Our study is novel in that we document, in a specific setting, how coordination influences MNCs’ tax reporting behavior.     

税收征管与企业对外投资:来自“金税工程三期”的证据

近些年来，我国对外投资规模迅猛增长，税收征管强度也在不断提升。那么，税收征管是否推动了中国企业的对外投资行为呢？鉴于鲜有文献探讨这一极具现实意义的话题，本文利用"金税工程三期"政策上线这一提高税收征管能力的准自然实验，采用双重差分法首次实证检验了税收征管对企业对外投资行为的影响作用。研究发现："金税工程三期"这一增加企业纳税遵从度、促进"应收尽收"的税收征管政策冲击显著地提高了企业对外投资的可能性、增加了企业对外投资规模，并且这一结论在引入更多控制变量并排除同期其他政策干扰、安慰剂检验、更换样本周期、倾向得分匹配分析等情况下依旧稳健。潜在的影响机制分析发现，"金税工程三期"这一税收征管政策冲击增加了企业的避税动机，表现为企业偏好于向税率低的东道国进行投资。异质性检验结果显示，"金税工程三期"这一税收征管政策冲击对企业对外投资行为的影响作用在不同对外投资事件类型、不同所有制类型的企业、不同地区、不同行业之间存在明显差异。最后，依据本文结论提出了积极落实减税降费政策、适度地提升银行业竞争水平的政策建议。     

Are export tax rebates patronage for Chinese firms? An analysis of productivity

This paper examines the nexus between export tax rebates and productivity using Chinese firm-level data from 2000 to 2007. The empirical findings indicate that a one percentage point decrease in export tax rebate rates increases the total factor productivity (TFP) of a firm by about 0.1 percentage points. We explore the possible mechanisms that explain this nexus and attribute it to the allocation effect of export tax rebate policy; that is, export tax rebates prevent low-productivity firms from exiting the market and further reallocate resources and economic activities to them. In addition, a decrease in rebate rates significantly encourages the TFP growth of surviving firms and leads to an increase in aggregate TFP. Specifically, throughout 2000–07, the declining rebate rates accounted for 5.23% of the rise in the aggregate TFP, and the between-firm effect was 3.85%, which is much larger than the within effect.     

Intra-industry adjustment and the correction of an externality

Conclusion The purpose of this paper is to apply some of the existing microeconomic theory literature on intra-industry adjustment resulting from factor price changes to the use of corrective taxes on externalities. The optimal tax to correct the effects of an externality is one placed directly on the external damage. Such a tax is sometimes not practically feasible, in which case either the inputs or output of firms in the externality-producing industry must be taxed as a proxy for the external damage.When the tax is placed on the input associated with the externality, the tax will only produce the optimal result if all firms produce an equal external damage which is proportional to the amount of the input which is used. If the amount of the externality produced by different firms is different, then an input tax will not satisfy the marginal conditions for optimality; and in some cases, the external damage may actually increase as a result of the input tax. An output tax, on the other hand, will never cause the external damage to increase, but will not in general satisfy the marginal conditions for optimality.When the amount of external damage caused by each firm in an industry is difficult to monitor, input or output taxes are two possible policy alternatives for controlling the externality. This paper has demonstrated that there are a number of problems associated with calculating the optimal input or output tax, and that a tax that is correct under restricted assumptions may actually aggravate the problem when examined in a more general environment. This analysis may explain why policy makers favor direct controls to reduce externalities, rather than taking the economist's frequent advice of using corrective taxes to price the externality.We are indebted to Charles Maurice for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.