Corporate tax incentives and capital structure: New evidence from UK firm-level tax returns
Corporate tax incentives and capital structure: New evidence from UK firm-level tax returns
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DOI：
10.1016/j.jbankfin.2017.12.004
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发表时间：
2018-03
影响因子：
3.7
通讯作者：
M. Devereux;G. Maffini;Jing Xing
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
M. Devereux;G. Maffini;Jing Xing
我们调查公司的资本结构是如何影响企业所得税使用机密的公司层面的纳税申报表的大样本的英国公司。利用公司边际税率的变化，我们发现一个积极的和实质性的长期税收杠杆效应。杠杆率对边际税率的下降反应更大，它对边际税率而不是平均税率的变化反应更大。最重要的是，我们发现基于纳税申报的边际税率比基于财务报表的边际税率对企业杠杆率有更大的解释力。我们的研究表明，在使用财务报表的税收激励措施的测量误差可能会导致低估的税收对资本结构的影响。
We investigate how companies’ capital structure is affected by corporate income taxes using confidential company-level tax returns for a large sample of UK firms. Exploiting variation in companies’ marginal tax rates, we find a positive and substantial long-run tax effect on leverage. Leverage responds more to decreases in the marginal tax rate, and it responds to changes in the marginal rather than the average tax rate. Most importantly, we find that the marginal tax rate based on tax returns has greater explanatory power for companies’ leverage than the marginal tax rate based on financial statements. Our study suggests that errors in the measurement for tax incentives using financial statements could lead to underestimation of the tax effects on capital structure.