Vliv zdanění příjmů na zadlužení nefinančních podniků
Influence of Income Taxation on Indebtedness of Non-financial Firms

Summary/Abstract: Theory supposes that corporate income taxation encourages companies to issue debt as opposed to equity finance because interests are deductible while dividends are not. In addition, international differences in tax regimes incentivize multinational firms to shift debt to optimize their taxes. Since a high debt level can have adverse consequences, we decided to find out whether taxation is one of the causes of indebtedness of the non-financial corporate sector. We used a macroeconomic approach, i.e., all the variables were constructed at the country level, and employed data for 17 EU member states for the period 2006–2014. The model for short-term indebtedness suggests that there is a relationship between corporate debt and taxation, especially between the debt-shifting incentive and the thin capitalization rule. However, the model for total indebtedness does not provide any evidence that corporate taxation influences the non-financial corporate sector debt. The firms’ debt was affected rather by macroeconomic factors.

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