Taxes, Earnings Payout, and Payout Channel Choice

Taxes, Earnings Payout, and Payout Channel Choice

Philipp Geiler, Luc Renneboog

Series number :

Serial Number: 
426/2014

Date posted :

June 01 2014

Last revised :

June 20 2014
SSRN Share

Keywords

  • payout policy • 
  • dividends • 
  • share repurchases • 
  • taxation • 
  • regulation

We study the tax regulations in relation to dividends and capital gains over the last two decades for the UK in order to determine whether changes in tax regimes affect corporate payout policy (dividends, share repurchases, or a combination). While we can identify investors? tax-driven preferences for a specific payout channel, we find no evidence of tax-induced clienteles.

Firms do indeed not cater to the tax preferences of their shareholders(including individuals, pension funds, corporations). Other factors, such as equity-based compensation received by the CEO and investor sentiment in the form of optimism reduce the dividend payout and increase the use of share repurchases.

Authors

Dr
Real name:
Philipp Geiler
EMLYON Business School