This aims to provide a perspective on the ideal tax system, using insights from optimal-tax theory supplemented with empirical evidence. These insights are applied to actual policy questions regarding the progressiveness of the labor-income tax, in-work tax credits, the design of the...

The German 2008 corporate tax reform followed the distinct and internationally prevalent pattern of tax-rate cut cum base broadening. Based on a new corporate microsimulation model, ZEW TaxCoMM, we assess the heterogeneous effects of the tax reform on firms, varying according to some of the...

The paper studies the effects that tax rate changes have on the cost of capital when firms follow target leverage ratios. We show that changes in individual income tax rates are neutral. The focus therefore is on the effects of changes in marginal corporate tax rates. These effects are computed...

Differential taxation implies the existence of different tax rates or tax bases for different types of investments. We analyze the effects of differential taxation on managerial effort and risk taking in a moral-hazard model of the LEN type. The agent selects a portfolio of a high-risk and a...

Most firms use one discount rate applied to expected net after-tax cash flows. The need to adjust for differences in risk, other than leverage, is commonly neglected. There can be substantial effects of taxation on after-tax risk when there are depreciation deductions. Among the few studies of...

Some noncompliant taxpayers fall outside the reach of third-party withholding and reporting. Revenue agencies may use enforcement and/or prosocial strategies to encourage compliance among such taxpayers. Revenue agencies should stand ready to use narrative as part of these efforts, despite...

We examine the effects of taxation on financing policy using the corporate tax reform in 2001 in Croatia as a quasi-natural experiment. Since the extant literature on tax effects on capital structure studies listed firms in developed countries, it is worth investigating whether the same results...

We investigate competition for FDI within a region when a foreign multinational firm can profitably exploit differences in statutory corporate tax rates by shifting taxable profits to lower-tax jurisdictions. In such a framework we show that targeted tax competition may lead to higher welfare...

This essay critically revisits the roles and influences of tax havens in the world economy. It combines various messages of available studies in one scheme, and uses various data sources to document regularities regarding multinational firms, financial assets, and other relevant information for...

This paper contributes to the literature providing indirect evidence for profit shifting within multinational companies. In contrast to the previous studies, we take account of the tax responsiveness of the capital stock and analyze the effect of corporate taxes on both pre- and posttax...