Payout policies of privately held firms: Flexibility and the role of income taxes

Martin Jacob and Annette Alstadsæter

No 152, arqus Discussion Papers in Quantitative Tax Research from arqus - Arbeitskreis Quantitative Steuerlehre

Abstract: We study the importance of owner wages and dividends as alternative payout channels in privately held firms. Using data on all Swedish closely held corporations and their owner-managers over the period 2000 - 2009, we find that dividends comprise one-fourth of total payout to owner-managers. Dividends are used as a flexible payout channel. Wages are the preferred payout channel and are rather sticky. Choice of payout channel and level of payout are affected by dividend and wage taxation. Consistent with the difference in flexibility across payout channels, shareholder taxes have a stronger impact on dividends than on wages.

Keywords: Payout Policy; Private Firms; Owner-managers; Dividends; Owner wages; Income Taxes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G30 G35 H24 H25 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/88161/1/772794618.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:arqudp:152

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in arqus Discussion Papers in Quantitative Tax Research from arqus - Arbeitskreis Quantitative Steuerlehre
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().