Behavioural effects of company taxation

税收对商业决策的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）收入影响和税收制度产生的相应效率成本的宝贵指标。然而，由于税收制度的各种特征相互作用所造成的复杂性，可以假定，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。在这一领域的研究是部分矛盾的结果，只有文件不太重要的行为反应的企业在税收框架条件的变化。在文献中，这一结果可以追溯到其他论点，以不精确的税收负担，将影响有关公司的测量。一个特别令人关切的问题是，衡量税收负担的税率没有适当考虑到亏损情况下的税收影响。在此背景下，本研究项目的目标是量化企业家对商业决策关键领域税收改革的反应程度。这一程度将以根据计量经济学分析确定的弹性的形式来表示，并-为了政治决策的方向-纳入一个动态微观模拟模型，以便能够将这些企业家的反应转化为（次级）收入效应。与绝大多数现有的研究相比，这里的目的是计算一个全面的欧洲公司的模拟边际税率-与其他有效税率不同-适合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。基于这些调查的目的是证明在何种程度上模拟边际税率确实使我们能够提出一个改进的计量经济学解释的税收对企业决策的影响相比，其他方法来评估有效的税率。除了在计量经济学分析的基础上计算这些影响之外，我们还建议以税收改革所产生的二次收入影响的形式来衡量这些行为反应的程度。为此，在本项目过程中确定的弹性将被纳入在哥廷根大学经济科学学院税务部门早期研究项目背景下开发的微观模拟模型ASSERT。

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.