Neutrality-based effective tax rates

Effective tax rates (ETRs) are designed to indicate the influence of taxes on investments. Existing ETR models fail to generate ETRs that can be compared to a constant yardstick and to other ETRs. This paper develops a new ETR approach based on neutral tax systems. Integration of neutral taxation into the computation of ETRs overcomes the problem of traditional numerical concepts: Comparison of the new ETR and the statutory tax rate as a constant yardstick reveals preferential or discriminatory taxation of investments. Moreover, the comparison of different ETRs displays which investment is distorted to a higher or lower degree.