Arguments for eliminating the double taxation of dividends apply only to dividends paid by corporations to individuals. The double (and multiple) taxation of dividends paid by one firm to another -- intercorporate dividends - was explicitly included in the 1930s as part of a package of tax and...

We study the relation between leverage and corporate tax rates using an extensive data set constructed from all corporate income tax returns filed with the IRS from 1926 to 2009. This data set includes financial statement data from millions of private and public corporations of all sizes. We...

We find that employee stock option deductions lead to large aggregate tax savings for Nasdaq 100 and S&P 100 firms and also affect corporate marginal tax rates. For Nasdaq firms, the median marginal tax rate is 31 percent when option deductions are ignored but falls to 5 percent when one...

This paper reviews the theory and evidence regarding the impact of taxation on corporate financial policy. Starting from a basic characterization of the classical corporate income tax and its effects, the analysis focuses on three areas of research: equity policy, debt-equity decisions, and...

Past attempts to measure the impact of taxes on corporate debt policy have focused on larger firms. Given that the top statutory corporate tax rate has varied little in recent years, tax incentives vary among these firms, almost entirely due to current or prospective tax losses. Results are...

How tax reform affects corporate financial decisions helps determine whether reform will increase capital formation and simplify the tax system. This paper describes the effects of fundamental tax reform on corporate tax planning and summarizes economists' knowledge of the magnitude of these...

We examine the effects of the Tax Reform Act of 1986 on the financial decisions made by firms. We review the theory and empirical predictions of prior literature for corporate debt policy, for dividend and equity repurchase payouts to shareholders, and for the choice of organizational form. We...

Many provisions of the U.S. tax code affect corporate decisions to pay out or retain earnings. Most studies of these effects have examined the effects of dividend and capital gains taxes on payouts. Relatively few studies have considered the effects of corporate taxes on retentions. In the early...

A new empirical method and data set are used to study the effects of tax policy on corporate financing choices. Clear evidence emerges that non-debt tax shields "crowd out" interest deductibility, thus decreasing the desirability of debt issues at the margin. Previous studies which failed to...

The cost of capital plays an important role in the allocation of resources among competing uses in a decentralized market system. The purpose of this paper is to organize and present what is known and what is hypothesized about the effects of taxation on the incentive to invest, via the cost of...