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The Direct Incidence of Corporate Income Tax on Wages

Author

Listed:
  • Wiji Arulampalam

    (University of Warwick and Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation)

  • Michael P Devereux

    (Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation)

  • Giorgia Maffini

    (University of Warwick and Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation)

Abstract

We examine how far taxes on corporate income are directly shifted onto the workforce. We use data on 55,082 companies located in nine European countries over the period 1996–2003. We identify this direct shifting through cross-company variation in tax liabilities, conditional on value added per employee. Our central estimate is that the long run elasticity of the wage bill with respect to taxation is -0.093. Evaluated at the median, this implies that an exogenous rise of $1 in tax would reduce the wage bill by 75 cents. We find only weak evidence of a difference for multinational companies.

Suggested Citation

  • Wiji Arulampalam & Michael P Devereux & Giorgia Maffini, 2009. "The Direct Incidence of Corporate Income Tax on Wages," Working Papers 0917, Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation.
    • Handle: RePEc:btx:wpaper:0917
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H22 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Incidence
    • 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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