This paper provides new evidence that taxes affect capital structure choice, using a unique and comprehensive panel data set which covers 86,173 German non-financial firms over the years 1973–2008. Following the Graham methodology to simulate marginal tax rates, we find a statistically and...

I estimate permanent and transitory tax-price and income elasticity of charitable giving in Germany using a rich panel data of tax return for the years 2001-2006. Income tax reforms were implemented in 2004 and 2005. The results suggest that the permanent tax-price elasticity varies...

Since 2002 the German government seeks to stimulate private retirement savings by means of special allowances and tax exemptions - the so-called Riester scheme. We apply matching and panel regression techniques to assess the impact of the Riester scheme on households' propensities to save in a...

This paper investigates the inter-temporal loss usage of tax units in Germany. Tax units that experience a loss in a year can offset that loss with positive income from adjacent year to receive a tax refund. Similar to companies, tax units can employ losses as carry-back in the year before the...

Most of the European Member States employ anti-loss trafficking rules. They aim to prevent the acquisition of mere corporate shells with high tax loss carryforwards for the tax asset to be utilized in profitable companies. However, other corporations can unintentionally be affected by the...

A growing interest in R&D tax incentives as a way to sustain research and innovation efforts has given rise to a large number of evaluations. The absence of consensus in the literature about their impact on R&D is intertwined with the variety of underpinning R&D tax incentives designs. Our...

Tax incentives are a key component of governments’ investment policy mix as they directly impact companies’ tax burden. In this paper, we illustrate the EU’s tax attractiveness as investment location over time in terms of effective average tax rates and evaluate potential tax reform...

Many countries have introduced patent box regimes in recent years, offering a reduced tax rate to businesses for their IP-related income. In this paper, we analyze the effects of patent box regimes when countries can simultaneously use patent boxes and R&D subsidies to promote innovation. We...

A growing interest in R&D tax incentive policies has given rise to a large number of evaluations, which provide contrasting results about their effectiveness. Our meta- analysis aims to explain the heterogeneity found in the R&D tax incentive evaluations by the features of tax incentives. We...

Anti-tax loss trafficking rules disallow the use of loss carryforwards after a change in ownership or activity (such as significant changes in turnover, employment, or the product portfolio). This restriction could threaten accumulated loss carryforwards of start-ups. Accounting for the...