Behavioural effects of company taxation

税收对商业决策影响的调查提高了我们对企业决策的理解，同时为政治参与者提供了有关税收改革的潜在（次要）收入效应和税收制度产生的相应效率成本的有价值的指示。然而，由于税收制度的各种特征相互作用所产生的复杂性，可以假设，即使在商业决策的关键领域，这种影响的强度和结构也尚未完全了解。这一领域的研究结果在一定程度上是相互矛盾的，并且只记录了企业对税收框架条件变化的不太显著的行为反应。在文献中，这一结果与其他论点一样，可以追溯到对影响相关公司的税负的不精确衡量。一个特别令人关切的问题是，用来衡量税收负担的税率没有适当考虑到在亏损情况下征税的影响。在此背景下，本研究项目的目标是量化企业对商业决策关键领域税收改革的反应程度。这种程度将以弹性的形式表示，弹性是在计量经济学分析的基础上确定的，并且为了政治决策的定向目的，将其纳入动态微观模拟模型，以便能够将这些企业反应转化为（次要的）收入效应。与现有的绝大多数研究相反，本文的目的是为一个全面的欧洲公司小组计算模拟的边际税率，这与其他有效税率不同，适合于准确反映上述相互关系。随后，在计量经济学研究的框架下，分析这些边际税率对资本结构、投资水平以及集团内部利润转移的程度和方向的影响。基于这些调查，我们的目的是要证明，与用于评估有效税率的其他方法相比，模拟边际税率在多大程度上确实使我们能够提出一种改进的计量经济学解释，说明税收对企业决策的影响。除了在计量经济学分析的基础上计算这些影响外，我们还建议衡量这些行为对税收改革的反应程度，其形式是由此产生的二次收入效应。为此，在本项目过程中确定的弹性将被纳入微观模拟模型ASSERT，该模型是在Göttingen大学经济科学学院税务部门早期研究项目的背景下开发的。

Investigations of the tax impact on business decisions improve our understanding of entrepreneurial decision-making and at the same time provide political players with valuable indications concerning potential (secondary) revenue effects of tax reforms and corresponding efficiency costs arising from the tax system. Due to the complexity resulting from the interaction of the various features of a tax system it is to be assumed, however, that even with respect to crucial areas of business decision making the intensity and structure of such impact is as yet not fully known. Studies in this field are in part contradictory in their results and only document less significant behavioral reactions of enterprises to changes in the tax framework conditions. In the literature, this outcome is traced back among other arguments to imprecise measurement of the tax burden that would affect the companies concerned. A matter of particular concern is that the tax rates on which the tax burden is measured do not take appropriate account of the impact of taxation in loss-making situations. Against this background, the goal of this research project is to quantify the extent of entrepreneurial reactions to tax reforms for crucial areas of business decision-making. This extent is to be represented in the form of elasticities determined on the basis of econometric analyses and - for purposes of orientation in political decision-making - integrated into a dynamic micro-simulation model in order to be able to translate these entrepreneurial reactions into (secondary) revenue effects. In contrast to the vast majority of existing studies the intention here is to calculate simulated marginal tax rates for a comprehensive panel of European corporations which - unlike other effective tax rates - are suited to accurately reflecting the interrelations referred to above. Subsequently, in the framework of econometric research the impact of these marginal tax rates on the capital structure, the level of investment and the extent and direction of intra-group profit shifting shall be analyzed. Based on these investigations the intention is to demonstrate to what extent simulated marginal tax rates indeed enable us to present an improved econometric explanation of tax impact on entrepreneurial decision-making in comparison to other methods used to assess effective tax rates. Besides calculating these effects on the basis of econometric analyses, we propose to gage also the extent of these behavioral reactions to tax reforms in the form of secondary revenue effects resulting from them. To this end the elasticities determined in the course of this project will be incorporated into the micro-simulation model ASSERT developed in the context of an earlier research project at the tax division of the Faculty of Economic Sciences at Göttingen University.