Determinants of the Variability of Corporate Effective Tax Rates: Evidence from Romanian Listed Companies

In this paper, I investigate the determinants of firm-specific corporate tax rates for nonfinancial companies listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange over a twelve-year period (2000-2011). Using a fixed effects panel data estimation model to account for individual firm heterogeneity, I find that capital intensity, leverage, and loss carry-forward provisions negatively affect corporate effective tax rates; company size and labor intensity have no effect; and profitability has a positive effect. Going beyond the deterministic investigation, the paper cannot provide evidence of tax-planning activities for the companies considered. Moreover, legal differences between financial and tax accounting related to provisions are found to have a positive effect on firm-specific effective tax rates.     

不同生命周期阶段的上市公司税收筹划行为研究

有效税收筹划不仅要降低企业的税收成本,还要努力降低税收筹划的非税成本。非税成本因其隐蔽性、间接性而容易被忽视,因而可能使税收筹划的成本（损失）大于其收益。非税成本的形成原因较多、其构成也比较复杂。文章选取沪深A股2008-2012年期间的4974家上市公司作为研究对象,运用多元线性回归模型检验了不同生命周期阶段的上市公司如何在税收节约与非税成本之间进行权衡。经验证据显示,处于成长期和衰退期的上市公司更倾向于采用积极的税收筹划行为,而处于成熟期的上市公司更倾向于采取较为保守稳健的税收筹划行为。结论为企业制定投资策略,监管机制完善管理提供了较好的理论基础。     

Tax Systems in the World: An Empirical Investigation into the Importance of Tax Bases, Administration Costs, Scale and Political Regime

We study the structure of taxation in a sample of 100 democratic and nondemocratic regimes over three time periods. The results provide strong support for several regularities in the world as a whole, specifically (1) scale effect: utilization of each tax source increases as the government expands, (2) base effect: tax systems rely more heavily on relatively larger tax bases, and (3) administrative cost effect: lower costs of administration lead to increased reliance on the corresponding revenue source. We also investigate the role of political regime and find that democracies rely substantially more on other income taxation, possibly because this tax source requires a higher degree of voluntary compliance. JEL Code: H2, D72, D78, E31, E51, F13, P35     

Agency costs,taxes and debt: The UK evidence

This paper provides an empirical examination of the impact of the corporation tax and agency costs on firms' capital structure decisions. Our evidence suggests that the agency costs are the main determinants of corporate borrowing. Consistent with the agency theory, we find that firms that have fewer growth options have more debt in their capital structure. Moreover, our results show that debt mitigates the free cash flow problem and that firms that are more likely to be diversified and less prone to bankruptcy are highly geared. the negative effect of insider shareholding on leverage disappears, however; when all the agency mechanisms are accounted for. In addition, we find that, in the long run, companies that are tax exhausted exhibit significantly lower debt ratios than tax-paying firms. However, in the short run, firms' capital structure decisions are not affected by taxation.     

“两税合一”对台湾上市公司股利税资本化的影响

本文以1994～2001年两税合一税制实施前后的台湾上市公司为样本，运用Harris-Kemsley股利税后收益模型，探讨所得税制改革对权益投资者收益的影响，以及两税合一税制的实施对股利税资本化的影响。实证结果表明：两税合一税制实施前，台湾上市公司的末分配盈余与其股利税资本化程度负相关，即股利税资本化效果存在；两税合一税制实施后，台湾上市公司的股利税资本化程度低于两税合一前的程度。     

Compliance costs for personal income tax in a transition country: the case of Slovenia

The evaluation of taxpayers' compliance costs has grown in significance within tax system research over the last 15 years. In 2001, two surveys of VAT and personal income taxpayers were conducted in Slovenia to evaluate compliance costs for the 2000 fiscal year. This paper presents the results of research into compliance costs for personal income tax in Slovenia. The results show that compliance costs for personal income tax are relatively low, primarily because most taxpayers consider filing their tax declaration to be a simple procedure, which means that consultancy costs are low.     

Corporate tax reforms and tax-motivated profit shifting: evidence from the EU

This paper examines whether the profit-shifting trend in Europe during 2003–2013 can be explained by tax policy changes. Consistent with prior literature, we find that affiliates’ profits are sensitive to tax rate changes. However, we document that tax base–broadening reforms have mitigated the incentives for both inward and outward profit shifting. In particular, we find that anti-avoidance rules prevent multinational companies from shifting profits out of their foreign affiliates, whereas other tax base–broadening rules, such as restrictions on the deductibility of tax losses or on group tax relief, reduce the incentives for multinational companies to shift profits into foreign affiliates. Furthermore, we find evidence of a downward trend in profit shifting across European countries, especially when the tax enforcement is stricter. Overall, these results suggest that broader tax bases and stricter tax enforcement have successfully curbed this particular tax strategy.     

CAP Forum on E‐Business: E‐Commerce and Tax Planning: Canadian Experiences*

This paper explores the deployment of e‐commerce by Canadian firms in the global marketplace, with an emphasis on the implications of e‐commerce for tax planning. The business press and various government task forces have discussed challenges raised by e‐commerce for traditional “source‐based” tax systems; however, these discussions have presented little evidence of firms' reliance on e‐commerce for tax‐planning purposes. Similarly, academic research has seldom examined whether firms' decisions to implement e‐commerce are by tax‐planning considerations. It is thus largely unknown whether firms actively consider taxation issues when evaluating e‐commerce, how the factors that have been identified as influencing decisions to implement e‐commerce systems are balanced against tax‐planning considerations, and what barriers might exist in practice to using e‐commerce for tax planning. We choose a qualitative interview‐based approach to explore these issues. Our findings suggest that tax planning is not considered by most of our respondent companies in their decisions to deploy e‐commerce. The companies we interviewed tended to implement e‐commerce over several years, starting with back‐office technologies like enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Accordingly, the ability to perform online sales transactions, which is a key component of using e‐commerce for tax planning, often was not yet in place. One implication of these results is that if concerns over tax revenue losses are realistic, tax policymakers may have some time to refine tax legislation to address the challenges raised by e‐commerce.     

Tax Motivated Income Shifting and Korean Business Groups (Chaebol)

Abstract:  This paper examines tax-induced income shifting behavior among affiliated firms in Korean business groups (chaebols). Korean corporate income tax law does not require consolidated tax returns, and business groups with a large number of affiliated member firms have incentives to shift income across member firms to reduce the overall taxes of the group. For a large number of Korean companies that are subject to external audits, we perform univariate and multivariate regression analyses on the income shifting behavior of chaebol firms compared with non-chaebol control firms. Our evidence suggests that tax-motivated income shifting activities exist among chaebol firms, and that the extent of income shifting is found to depend on its effect on non-tax cost factors such as the earnings, leverage, and cash flow rights of the controlling shareholders. We also find that income shifting is more pronounced in chaebol firms where the control-cash flow divergence is relatively large, suggesting that income shifting is affected by the controlling shareholders' opportunism. Our study provides some insights on the intra-group income shifting activities where research is limited.