This paper examines tax arbitrage in the market for municipal bonds. It poses a puzzle for the literature, however, in that we find little evidence of municipal bond tax arbitrage by non-financial corporations. Even among those firms engaged in arbitrage, many firms do less than a safe-harbor...

Although tax arbitrage is central to the literatures on tax capitalization, implicit taxes, and even capital structure, there is little empirical evidence of the extent to which firms actually engage in tax arbitrage. This paper provides some evidence on the topic by focusing on a simple and...

Introduction to tax strategy -- Tax law fundamentals -- Returns on alternative savings vehicles -- Choosing the optimal organizational form -- Implicit taxes and clienteles, arbitrage, restrictions, and frictions -- Nontax costs of tax planning -- The importance of marginal tax rates and dynamic...

In 2001, the IRS issued a ruling allowing firms to engage in nontaxable real estate investment trust (REIT) spin-offs. In a REIT spin-off, a corporation places real estate assets into a subsidiary, which it then distributes to shareholders as a REIT. A nontaxable spin-off triggers no immediate...