Follow the money! Why dividends overreact to flat-tax reforms

Pre-print, Working paper: We estimate behavioral responses to dividend taxation using recent French reforms: a rate hike followed, five years later, by a cut. Exploiting household and firm tax data as well as data linking firms and shareholders, we find very large dividend tax elasticities to both reforms. Individuals who control firms adjust dividend receipts instantaneously, accounting for most of the aggregate dividend reaction. Investment is insensitive to dividend taxation. Dividend adjustments are instead driven by corporate saving, as owner-managers treat firms as low-tax saving vehicles. Our results fit the ‘new view’ of dividend taxation, provided an additional low-tax yet costly payout option is available that offers a tax arbitrage opportunity to entrepreneurs in control of their firms.

Author(s)

Laurent Bach, Antoine Bozio, Arthur Guillouzouic, Claire Leroy, Clément Malgouyres

Date of publication
  • 2024
Keywords JEL
G35 H24 O16
Keywords
  • Dividend tax
  • Corporate investment
  • Firm owner-managers
Internal reference
  • PSE Working Papers n°2019-70
Pages
  • 41 p.+ annexes
Version
  • 2