Accounting Papers
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of this Version
11-2010
Publication Source
Journal of Financial Economics
Volume
98
Issue
2
Start Page
195
Last Page
213
DOI
10.1016/j.jfineco.2010.04.005
Abstract
We re-examine the claim that many corporations are underleveraged in that they fail to take full advantage of debt tax shields. We show prior results suggesting underleverage stems from biased estimates of tax benefits from interest deductions. We develop improved estimates of marginal tax rates using a non-parametric procedure that produces more accurate estimates of the distribution of future taxable income. We show that additional debt would provide firms with much smaller tax benefits than previously thought, and when expected distress costs and difficult-to-measure non-debt tax shields are also considered, it appears plausible that most firms have tax-efficient capital structures.
Copyright/Permission Statement
© 2010. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Keywords
debt, capital structure, marginal tax rates, taxes
Recommended Citation
Blouin, J. L., Core, J., & Guay, W. R. (2010). Have the Tax Benefits of Debt Been Overestimated?. Journal of Financial Economics, 98 (2), 195-213. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jfineco.2010.04.005
Date Posted: 27 November 2017
This document has been peer reviewed.