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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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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:3781

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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. Alan J. Auerbach, 1983. "Corporate Taxation in the United States," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 14(1983-2), pages 451-514. [Downloadable!]
  4. 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)
  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. 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)
  7. 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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  8. 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)
  9. 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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  10. 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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  11. 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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  12. Miller, Merton H, 1977. "Debt and Taxes," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 32(2), pages 261-75, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. 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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