Tax preferences, dividends and lobbying for maximum value

South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Tax preferences, dividends and lobbying for maximum value
 
Creator Badenhorst, Wessel M.
 
Subject — dividend; tax; corporate; shareholder
Description Background: The value of equity investments depends to some extent on the tax consequences for investors. When groups of investors have different tax preferences, this can lead to conflicting pressures on firms to either retain earnings or pay dividends. The findings of this study will be of interest to researchers of taxation and corporate governance alike, as they highlight the role that corporate shareholders play in the decisions of the firm. Investors and regulators will also be interested in the findings as they reveal more about the interaction between shareholders with conflicting interests. Lastly, changes in behaviour as a result of changes in tax legislation are of interest to those with fiscal responsibility.Setting: A 2012 dividend tax change in South Africa, which simultaneously altered the tax preferences of individual and corporate investors, provides a unique opportunity to investigate firms’ reaction to their investors’ tax preferences.Aim: This article seeks to determine whether firms respond to changes in their investors’ tax preferences in their decisions to either retain earnings or pay dividends.Method: The article investigates the responses of firms to the 2012 dividend tax change using multivariate regressions.Results: Findings show that firms consider changes in the tax preferences of their investors in setting dividend policies. In addition, it appears that corporates have greater success in lobbying for beneficial dividend changes than individuals.Conclusion: Changes in investors’ tax preferences impact on firms’ dividend policy decisions. These decisions ultimately affect the value of the firm to its investors
 
Publisher AOSIS Publishing
 
Contributor
Date 2017-03-24
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — —
Format text/html application/epub+zip application/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/sajems.v20i1.1476
 
Source South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences; Vol 20, No 1 (2017); 10 pages 2222-3436 1015-8812
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://sajems.org/index.php/sajems/article/view/1476/705 https://sajems.org/index.php/sajems/article/view/1476/704 https://sajems.org/index.php/sajems/article/view/1476/706 https://sajems.org/index.php/sajems/article/view/1476/697
 
Coverage — — H24, H25, D22
Rights Copyright (c) 2017 Wessel M. Badenhorst https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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