The role of creditor protection in lending and tax avoidance

We examine how creditor rights affect the trade-off between non-debt and debt tax shields. Using four bankruptcy reforms and a panel of private and public firms from Italy, we show that laws empowering creditors reduce tax avoidance and increase debt financing, consistent with firms substituting non...

ver descrição completa

Detalhes bibliográficos
Autores: De-Vito, A. (Antonio)|||/items/63639642-1abe-424a-bb32-23673853ed9d, Jacob, M. (Martin)|||/items/b4c80971-c877-4230-904c-54573540e482
Tipo de documento: artigo
Data de publicação:2022
País:España
Recursos:Universidad de Navarra
Repositório:Dadun. Depósito Académico Digital de la Universidad de Navarra
Idioma:inglês
OAI Identifier:oai:dadun.unav.edu:10171/119309
Acesso em linha:https://hdl.handle.net/10171/119309
Access Level:Acceso aberto
Palavra-chave:Debtor & creditor
Credit
Credit laws
Loans
Tax evasion
Descrição
Resumo:We examine how creditor rights affect the trade-off between non-debt and debt tax shields. Using four bankruptcy reforms and a panel of private and public firms from Italy, we show that laws empowering creditors reduce tax avoidance and increase debt financing, consistent with firms substituting non-debt tax shields with debt tax shields. We corroborate the validity of our findings using a panel of public firms across 33 countries. Additionally, we document that the impact of creditor protection laws is mitigated by tax system characteristics, which significantly reduce the incentives to substitute tax avoidance with debt.