Financing corporate tax cuts with shareholder taxes

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Anagnostopoulos, Alexis; Atesagaoglu, Orhan Erem; Carceles-Poveda, Eva
• 署名单位: State University of New York (SUNY) System; Stony Brook University; Istanbul Bilgi University
• 刊物名称: QUANTITATIVE ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1759-7323
• DOI: 10.3982/QE1167
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 315-354
• 关键词: Optimal corporate taxes; double taxation; Heterogeneity; misallocation; e6

摘要

We study the aggregate and distributional consequences of replacing corporate profit taxes with shareholder taxes, namely taxes on dividends and capital gains, in a setting with incomplete markets and heterogeneity at both the household and the firm level. The reform yields distributional gains with a large majority of households benefiting. Moreover, if dividend and capital gains are taxed at the same rate, the reform is also efficiency-enhancing and the implied optimal corporate income tax rate is zero. In contrast, an asymmetric tax treatment of dividend and capital gains induces a trade-off between efficiency and distributional concerns that is optimally resolved at a positive optimal corporate tax rate, implying double taxation.