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How Much Do Taxes Discourage Incorporation

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Author Info
Jeffrey K. MacKie-Mason
Roger H. Gordon

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Abstract

One of the most basic distortions created by the double taxation of corporate income is the disincentive to incorporate. In this paper, we investigate the extent to which the aggregate allocation of assets and taxable income in the U.S. between corporate vs. noncorporate forms of organization during the period 1959-86 has responded to the size of the tax distortion discouraging firms from incorporating. In theory, profitable firms should shift out of the corporate sector when the tax distortion to incorporating is larger, and conversely for firms with tax losses. Our empirical results provide strong support for these theoretical forecasts, and hold consistently across a wide variety of specifications and measures of the tax variables. Measured effects are small, however, throwing doubt on the economic importance of tax-induced changes in organizational form.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 3781.

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Date of creation: Jul 1991
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Publication status: published as Journal of Finance, vol.50, no.2, June 1997.
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:3781

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Roger H. Gordon & Jeffrey K. MacKie-Mason, 1992. "Tax Distortions to the Choice of Organizational Form," NBER Working Papers 4227, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Laurence J. Kotlikoff & Lawrence H. Summers, 1988. "Tax Incidence," NBER Working Papers 1864, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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    • Kotlikoff, Laurence J. & Summers, Lawrence H., 1987. "Tax incidence," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 16, pages 1043-1092 Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Kevin J. Murphy, 1986. "Incentives, Learning, and Compensation: A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation of Managerial Labor Contracts," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 17(1), pages 59-76, Spring. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Poterba, J.M., 1989. "Tax Reform And The Market For Tax-Exempt Debt," Working papers 514, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
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  5. Altshuler, Rosanne & Auerbach, Alan J, 1990. "The Significance of Tax Law Asymmetries: An Empirical Investigation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 105(1), pages 61-86, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Gravelle, Jane G & Kotlikoff, Laurence J, 1989. "The Incidence and Efficiency Costs of Corporate Taxation When Corporate and Noncorporate Firms Produce the Same Good," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(4), pages 749-80, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Kochin, Levis A & Parks, Richard W, 1988. " Was the Tax-Exempt Bond Market Inefficient or Were Future Expected Tax Rates Negative?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 43(4), pages 913-31, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Feldstein, Martin & Dicks-Mireaux, Louis & Poterba, James, 1983. "The effective tax rate and the pretax rate of return," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 129-158, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Gentry, William M., 1994. "Taxes, financial decisions and organizational form : Evidence from publicly traded partnerships," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 223-244, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Miller, Merton H, 1977. "Debt and Taxes," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 32(2), pages 261-75, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Myron S. Scholes & Mark A. Wolfson, 1989. "The Effects of Changes in Tax Laws on Corporate Reorganization Activity," NBER Working Papers 3095, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  12. Gordon, Roger H. & Bradford, David F., 1980. "Taxation and the stock market valuation of capital gains and dividends : Theory and emphirical results," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 109-136, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Roger H. Gordon & Young Lee, 1999. "Do Taxes Affect Corporate Debt Policy? Evidence from US Corporate Tax Return Data," NBER Working Papers 7433, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Peter Birch Sørensen, 2006. "Can Capital Income Taxes Survive? And Should They?," EPRU Working Paper Series 06-06, Economic Policy Research Unit (EPRU), University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  3. Roger H. Gordon & Joel Slemrod, 1998. "Are "Real" Responses to Taxes Simply Income Shifting Between Corporate and Personal Tax Bases?," NBER Working Papers 6576, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Jagadeesh Sivadasan & Joel Slemrod, 2006. "Tax Law Changes, Income Shifting and Measured Wage Inequality: Evidence from India," NBER Working Papers 12240, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Roger H. Gordon & Jeffrey K. MacKie-Mason, 1994. "Why Is There Corporate Taxation In a Small Open Economy? The Role of Transfer Pricing and Income Shifting," NBER Working Papers 4690, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  6. Félix Domínguez Barrero & Julio López Laborda & Fernando Rodrigo Sauco, 2005. "Do Corporate and Personal Income Taxes Affect Incorporation?," Hacienda Pública Española, IEF, vol. 174(3), pages 55-86, September. [Downloadable!]
  7. Peter Birch Sørensen, 2006. "Can Capital Income Taxes Survive? And Should They?," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo GmbH. [Downloadable!]
  8. Austan Goolsbee, 1997. "Taxes, Organizational Form, and the Deadweight Loss of the Corporate Income Tax," NBER Working Papers 6173, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  9. Alan Auerbach & Michael P. Devereux & Helen Simpson, 2007. "Taxing Corporate Income," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo GmbH. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  10. Margaret Lamb, Andrew Lymer, 1999. "Taxation research in an accounting context: future prospects and interdisciplinary perspectives," European Accounting Review, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 8(4), pages 749-776, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Ahmed, S., 2004. "Modelling corporate tax liabilities using company accounts: a new framework," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0412, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge. [Downloadable!]
  12. Robert Carroll & Warren Hrung, 2005. "What Does the Taxable Income Elasticity Say about Dynamic Responses to Tax Changes?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 426-431, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Mihir A. Desai & Dhammika Dharmapala, 2004. "Corporate Tax Avoidance and High Powered Incentives," NBER Working Papers 10471, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  14. Ruud de Mooij & Gaetan Nicodème, 2006. "Corporate Tax Policy, Entrepreneurship and Incorporation in the EU," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo GmbH. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  15. Martin D. Dietz & Christian Keuschnigg, 2004. "Corporate Income Tax Reform in Switzerland," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 140(IV), pages 483-519, December. [Downloadable!]
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  16. Joel Slemrod, 1995. "High-Income Families and the Tax Changes of the 1980s: The Anatomy of Behavioral Response," NBER Working Papers 5218, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  17. Demirguc-Kunt, Asli & Love, Inessa & Maksimovic, Vojislav, 2004. "Business Environment and the Incorporation Decision," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3317, The World Bank. [Downloadable!]
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  18. Alan J. Auerbach, 2001. "Taxation and Corporate Financial Policy," NBER Working Papers 8203, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  19. Thor O. Thoresen and Annette Alstadsæter, 2008. "Shifts in organizational form under a dual income tax system," Discussion Papers 529, Research Department of Statistics Norway. [Downloadable!]
  20. Annette Alstadsaeter, 2007. "The Achilles Heel of the Dual Income Tax: The Norwegian Case," Finnish Economic Papers, Finnish Society for Economic Research, vol. 20(1), pages 5-22, Spring. [Downloadable!]
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