IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejpol/v13y2021i2p467-500.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Costs of Corporate Tax Complexity

Author

Listed:
  • Eric Zwick

Abstract

Does tax code complexity alter corporate behavior? We investigate this question by studying the decision to claim refunds for tax losses. In a sample of 1.2 million observations from the population of corporate tax returns, only 37 percent of eligible firms claim their refund. A simple cost-benefit analysis of the tax loss choice cannot explain low take-up, motivating an exploration of how complexity alters this calculation. Research designs exploiting tax preparer switches, deaths, and relocations show that sophisticated preparers increase claim rates for small firms. Imperfect take-up has implications for measuring marginal tax rates and for the design of fiscal policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Eric Zwick, 2021. "The Costs of Corporate Tax Complexity," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 467-500, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejpol:v:13:y:2021:i:2:p:467-500
    DOI: 10.1257/pol.20180406
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pol.20180406
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://doi.org/10.3886/E119153V1
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pol.20180406.appx
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pol.20180406.ds
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/pol.20180406?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Katarzyna Bilicka & Daniela Scur, 2021. "Organizational capacity and profit shifting," CEP Discussion Papers dp1795, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    2. Massenz, Gabriella, 2023. "On the behavioral effects of tax policy," Other publications TiSEM eb44a9f7-b859-480d-b2e4-4, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    3. Cui, Wei & Hicks, Jeffrey & Xing, Jing, 2022. "Cash on the table? Imperfect take-up of tax incentives and firm investment behavior," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    4. Segundo Camino‐Mogro, 2023. "Tax incentives, private investment and employment: Evidence from an Ecuadorian reform," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(7), pages 2129-2156, October.
    5. Felipe Lobel, 2022. "The Unequal Incidence of Payroll Taxes with Imperfect Competition: Theory and Evidence," Papers 2210.15776, arXiv.org.
    6. Granja, João & Makridis, Christos & Yannelis, Constantine & Zwick, Eric, 2022. "Did the paycheck protection program hit the target?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(3), pages 725-761.
    7. Charles Swenson & Hao Qu, 2022. "Rent-Seeking and the Volume of Tax Laws: The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017," Applied Economics and Finance, Redfame publishing, vol. 9(1), pages 37-53, December.
    8. Abe Dunn & Joshua D. Gottlieb & Adam Shapiro & Daniel J. Sonnenstuhl & Pietro Tebaldi, 2021. "A Denial a Day Keeps the Doctor Away," NBER Working Papers 29010, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Zucman, Gabriel & Bustos, Sebastian & Pomeranz, Dina & Suárez Serrato, Juan Carlos & Vila-Belda, José, 2022. "The Race Between Tax Enforcement and Tax Planning: Evidence From a Natural Experiment in Chile," CEPR Discussion Papers 17347, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. HONDA Tomohito & HOSONO Kaoru & MIYAKAWA Daisuke & ONO Arito & UESUGI Iichiro, 2024. "Imperfect Take-up of COVID-19 Business Support Programs," Discussion papers 24001, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    11. Jeffrey L. Coles & Elena Patel & Nathan Seegert & Matthew Smith, 2022. "How Do Firms Respond to Corporate Taxes?," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(3), pages 965-1006, June.
    12. Konda, Laura & Patel, Elena & Seegert, Nathan, 2022. "Tax enforcement and the intended and unintended consequences of information disclosure," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    13. Selale Tuzel & Miao Ben Zhang, 2021. "Economic Stimulus at the Expense of Routine‐Task Jobs," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 76(6), pages 3347-3399, December.
    14. Bertrand Garbinti & Jonathan Goupille-Lebret & Mathilde Muñoz & Stefanie Stantcheva & Gabriel Zucman, 2023. "Tax Design, Information, and Elasticities: Evidence From the French Wealth Tax," NBER Working Papers 31333, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Baumgart, Eike & Blaufus, Kay & Hechtner, Frank, 2023. "The tax treatment of commuting expenses and job-related mobility," arqus Discussion Papers in Quantitative Tax Research 280, arqus - Arbeitskreis Quantitative Steuerlehre.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
    • D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis
    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • H25 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Business Taxes and Subsidies
    • K34 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Tax Law

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aejpol:v:13:y:2021:i:2:p:467-500. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.