IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ecm/wc2000/1611.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Personal Tax Advantage of Equity

Author

Listed:
  • Richard Green

    (Carnegie Mellon University)

  • Burton Hollifield

    (Carnegie Mellon University)

Abstract

We compute the value of a firm that pays its cash flows each period through share repurchases in a dynamic environment where personal taxes are paid on realized capital gains and dividends. These results provide a measure of the personal tax advantages of equity financing relative to debt financing, which are often cited as increasing the cost of debt. The initial price of the firm depends on the present value of the taxes paid, which, in turn, depends on the initial price. We solve this valuation problem in closed form in a deterministic setting and numerically in a stochastic setting. We find significant valuation effects from the tax protection afforded by the equity basis. The tax savings are on the order of 40-50\% of the taxes paid by the shareholders of firm that distributes cash through dividends, and the cost of capital is reduced by approximately .8 to 1.2 percentage points through the use of repurchases relative to dividends.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard Green & Burton Hollifield, 2000. "The Personal Tax Advantage of Equity," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 1611, Econometric Society.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecm:wc2000:1611
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://fmwww.bc.edu/RePEc/es2000/1611.pdf
    File Function: main text
    Download Restriction: no

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. DeAngelo, Harry & Masulis, Ronald W., 1980. "Optimal capital structure under corporate and personal taxation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 3-29, March.
    2. John R. Graham, 2000. "How Big Are the Tax Benefits of Debt?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(5), pages 1901-1941, October.
    3. Jagannathan, Murali & Stephens, Clifford P. & Weisbach, Michael S., 2000. "Financial flexibility and the choice between dividends and stock repurchases," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(3), pages 355-384, September.
    4. Bagwell, Laurie Simon & Shoven, John B, 1989. "Cash Distributions to Shareholders," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 129-140, Summer.
    5. Warner, Jerold B, 1977. "Bankruptcy Costs: Some Evidence," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 32(2), pages 337-347, May.
    6. Jensen, Michael C. & Meckling, William H., 1976. "Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 305-360, October.
    7. John R. Graham & Michael L. Lemmon & James S. Schallheim, 1998. "Debt, Leases, Taxes, and the Endogeneity of Corporate Tax Status," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 53(1), pages 131-162, February.
    8. Miller, Merton H, 1977. "Debt and Taxes," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 32(2), pages 261-275, May.
    9. Parrino, Robert & Weisbach, Michael S., 1999. "Measuring investment distortions arising from stockholder-bondholder conflicts," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 3-42, July.
    10. Hayne E. Leland., 1998. "Agency Costs, Risk Management, and Capital Structure," Research Program in Finance Working Papers RPF-278, University of California at Berkeley.
    11. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2000. "Trading Is Hazardous to Your Wealth: The Common Stock Investment Performance of Individual Investors," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(2), pages 773-806, April.
    12. Talmor, Eli & Haugen, Robert & Barnea, Amir, 1985. "The Value of the Tax Subsidy on Risky Debt," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 58(2), pages 191-202, April.
    13. Dammon, Robert M & Spatt, Chester S & Zhang, Harold H, 2001. "Optimal Consumption and Investment with Capital Gains Taxes," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 14(3), pages 583-616.
    14. Eugene F. Fama & Kenneth R. French, 1999. "The Corporate Cost of Capital and the Return on Corporate Investment," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(6), pages 1939-1967, December.
    15. Hayne E. Leland, 1998. "Agency Costs, Risk Management, and Capital Structure," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 53(4), pages 1213-1243, August.
    16. Balcer, Yves & Judd, Kenneth L, 1987. "Effects of Capital Gains Taxation on Life-Cycle Investment and Portfolio Management," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 42(3), pages 743-758, July.
    17. Graham, John R., 1996. "Debt and the marginal tax rate," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 41-73, May.
    18. Myers, Stewart C., 1977. "Determinants of corporate borrowing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 147-175, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    More about this item

    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:ecm:wc2000:1611. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Christopher F. Baum). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/essssea.html .

    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.

    If CitEc recognized a reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.