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Economic Effects of Taxing Closed Corporations under a Dual Income Tax

Author

Listed:
  • Lindhe, Tobias

    (Department of Economics)

  • Södersten, Jan

    (Department of Economics)

  • Öberg, Ann

    (Department of Economics)

Abstract

Under the Nordic dual income tax system, the taxpayer's total tax bill depends not only on his total income but also on the division of that income between capital income and labor income. This has created new room for tax avoidance, especially for active owners of (closed) corporations. For that reason the Nordic governments have enacted special income-splitting rules and this paper examines the economic effects of these rules. The Swedish scheme of taxing closed corporations is shown to be neutral in its impact on the allocation of resources between closely and widely held corporations, and the cost of capital is invariant to the rate at which capital income is imputed to the owner. The Finnish system rather increases the attractiveness of investing in closed corporations, while the Norwegian scheme may or may not cause the cost of capital to be different from that of widely held corporations. Finally, for Swedish tax rules, we show that the owner's labor supply may decrease as a response to a more lenient tax treatment.

Suggested Citation

  • Lindhe, Tobias & Södersten, Jan & Öberg, Ann, 2001. "Economic Effects of Taxing Closed Corporations under a Dual Income Tax," Working Paper Series 2001:16, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:hhs:uunewp:2001_016
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    Cited by:

    1. Peter Birch Sørensen, 2003. "Neutral Taxation of Shareholder Income: A Norwegian Tax Reform Proposal," CESifo Working Paper Series 1036, CESifo.
    2. Seppo Kari & Hanna Karikallio, 2007. "Tax treatment of dividends and capital gains and the dividend decision under dual income tax," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 14(4), pages 427-456, August.
    3. Jukka Pirttilä & Håkan Selin, 2006. "How Successful is the Dual Income Tax? Evidence from the Finnish Tax Reform of 1993," Working Papers 223, Työn ja talouden tutkimus LABORE, The Labour Institute for Economic Research LABORE.
    4. Vesa Kanniainen & Seppo Kari & Jouko Ylä-Liedenpohja, 2007. "Nordic dual income taxation of entrepreneurs," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 14(4), pages 407-426, August.
    5. Seppo Kari & Jouko Ylä-Liedenpohja, 2004. "Cost of Capital for Cross-Border Investment: The Fallacy of Estonia as a Tax Haven," Baltic Journal of Economics, Baltic International Centre for Economic Policy Studies, vol. 5(1), pages 28-43, December.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Dual income taxation; Tax avoidance; Corporate taxation; Cost of capital;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies
    • H25 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Business Taxes and Subsidies
    • H32 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Firm

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