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Wie entsteht ein Fachbereich an einer Reformhochschule? Wie entsteht eine Fakultät an einer Universität? Was wissen wir über die Entstehung und Entwicklung der heutigen Fakultät für Wirtschaftswissenschaften an der Universität Paderborn? Eng verbunden mit ihrer Institution geben Fakultätsangehörige - vornehmlich aus dem Kreis der emeritierten/pensionierten, ehemaligen und derzeit amtierenden Professorinnen und Professoren, aber auch aus den Gruppen ehemaliger Habilitandinnen und Habilitanden, Doktorandinnen und Doktoranden sowie Studierenden - Einblicke in ihr Wirken und ihre Erlebnisse an ihrer Fakultät. Vor allem die Anfangszeit der gerade 45 Jahre jungen Fakultäts- und damit auch Universitätsgeschichte soll nicht in Vergessenheit geraten. Die Fakultät ist heute alt genug, um in einer Retrospektive die historische Bedeutung von Ereignissen erkennen zu lassen. Die Fakultät ist aber auch immer noch jung genug, um die Chance zu nutzen, insbesondere Zeitzeugen aus der Gründungsphase zu Wort kommen zu lassen. So ist es gelungen, die Entwicklung der Paderborner Wirtschaftswissenschaften über eine hoch persönliche Sammlung von Fundstücken und Erinnerungen authentisch zu beschreiben. Diese Eindrücke, aber auch die bildungs- und regionalgeschichtlichen Aspekte der Beiträge sollen zum Nachschlagen und -forschen anregen.

This study examines whether country-specific risk attenuates the association between tax policies and corporate risk-taking. We define country-specific risk (political and fiscal budget risk) as taxpayer's risk that tax refunds on losses cannot be paid due to the institutional environment or fiscal reasons. We exploit a cross-country panel with 234 changes in corporate tax rates and 49 changes in loss offset rules. We investigate whether government risk-sharing via loss offset rules and tax rates affects risk-taking conditional on country risk. We also examine whether tax rate changes, that scale the risk-sharing effect, influence the propensity to conduct risky projects in different country-level risk environments. Our results suggest that country-level risk fully attenuates the previously documented association between tax policies and corporate risk-taking. It attenuates both the effectiveness of loss offset rules and tax rate changes on corporate risk-taking. While changes in tax policy are attractive to policymakers because alternative instruments to encourage risk-taking cannot as easily be adjusted, we provide significant evidence that country risk considerably limits policymakers' ability to induce firm risk-taking via changes in tax policies.

Tax uncertainty is often claimed to be harmful for investments. Capital taxes, such as property and wealth taxes, are particularly exposed to tax uncertainty. Capital tax uncertainty emerges from expected tax reforms, the unclear outcome of future tax audits, and simplified estimates of capital tax bases in investment models. Uncertain returns on investment as well as stochastic taxation contribute to overall uncertainty and may significantly affect investment decisions. Hitherto, it is unknown how capital tax uncertainty affects investment timing. However, it is well known that both uncertainty and capital tax may be harmful for investment and decelerate investment activities. We are the first to study the investment timing effects of stochastic capital taxes in a real options setting with risky investment opportunities. Our results indicate that even risk neutral investors are sensitive with respect to capital tax risk and may react in a surprising manner to a newly introduced stochastic capital tax. As an apparently paradoxical investment effect, we find that increased capital tax uncertainty can accelerate risky investment if such uncertainty is sufficiently low compared to cash .ow uncertainty. In contrast, high capital tax risk delays high-risk innovative investment projects. To reduce unintended consequences of uncertain tax policy, tax legislators and tax authorities should avoid high levels of capital tax uncertainty. Broadening the capital tax base or increasing the capital tax rate induces ambiguous timing effects. Furthermore, high-growth investments are likely to be postponed if they experience a capital tax cut. Since investment reactions upon tax reforms are well-known to affect income and wealth distribution, reliable estimations of the impact of taxes on economic decisions are necessary.

In March 2011, the European Commission submitted a proposal for a Council Directive on an optional common consolidated corporate tax base (CCCTB). If this proposed CCCTB system comes into force, taxes calculated under the currently existing system of separate accounting might be replaced by a system of group consolidation and formulary apportionment. Then, multinational groups (MNGs) would face the decision as to whether to opt for the CCCTB system. While prior research focuses mainly on the differences in economic behaviour under both systems in general, we study the conditions under which one or the other tax system is preferable from the perspective of an MNG, with a particular focus on loss offsets. We focus on European MNGs with losses at the parent and subsidiary level. While in our base model, the CCCTB proves to be attractive for temporarily loss-making MNGs, in our extended model we find mixed results. We identify four effects that determine the decision of an MNG: the tax-utilization of losses, the allocation of the tax base, the dividend and intragroup interest taxation. We find, e.g., that the CCCTB system proves advantageous for increasing loss/profit streams (e.g. from start-ups or R&D projects) of the individual group entities, whereas the system of separate accounting is beneficial for decreasing profit/loss streams (e.g. caused by a decrease in return from a mature product). The results of our analysis are helpful for MNGs facing the decision as to whether to opt for the CCCTB system. Moreover, our findings can support legislators and politicians in their tax reform discussions, as we provide information on the possible consequence of implementing this system on the expected decisions of corporate taxpayers that anticipate the tax effects of the CCCTB.

In entrepreneurial decisions making uncertain future profits often are a main characteristics of real investment opportunities. If investors can react to uncertainty the degree of irreversibility and timing flexibility inherent in the available project should be integrated into the decision calculus. In this paper we investigate the interdependencies of effects from profit taxation and real options. We model an investment decision including an option to invest and an option to abandon. We show that increasing the tax rate can lead to paradoxical tax effects, i.e. may foster an investor's willingness to invest into a capitalized investment. Instead, if we abstract from the possibility to abandon the investment object such paradoxical effect cannot be identified. Determining the after-tax value of the option to enter the investment project with and without an abandonment option we receive a critical cash flow cutoff level. We find that the value of the option to abandon depends on the tax rate and the amount of periodical cash flows. The option value can be increasing or decreasing in the tax rate. We find scenarios with paradoxical tax effects and show that the observed paradoxical effects are due to the presence of the real abandonment option itself. This finding contributes to the stream of literature that explains potential sources of paradoxical tax effects. The generated decision rules are helpful for investors facing risky investment opportunities and for discussing the economic impact of tax reforms. Furthermore, we highlight the overwhelming importance of integrating taxes in typically applied valuation approaches.

This paper analyzes the impact of taxation on risk-taking under irreversibility. We integrate a simple tax system into a real option model. Under irreversibility and risk neutrality, raising the tax rate can either increase or reduce risk-taking. We numerically derive tax-volatility indifference curves, i.e. combinations of volatility and tax rate, which induce identical investment thresholds. Using this novel illustration technique it is possible to identify conditions for an unambiguous influence of taxes on risk-taking. Our simulations indicate that raising the tax rate increases risk-taking under low volatility. Implementing a ?nal withholding tax on capital income tends to reduce risky investment. Our findings extend the well-known tax effects on investment from certainty with respect to uncertainty, irreversibility, and risk-taking. ; Der vorliegende Beitrag untersucht den Einfluss der Besteuerung auf die Bereitschaft von Investoren, riskante und irreversible Investitionen durchzuführen. Als Erweiterung der vorliegenden Literatur wird ein einfaches Ertragsteuersystem in ein realoptionsbasiertes Modell irreversibler Investitionen bei Risikoneutralität integriert. Es wird gezeigt, dass Erhöhungen des Ertragsteuersatzes die Bereitschaft zur Risikoübernahme erhöhen, aber auch verringern können. Wir leiten SteuersatzVolatilitäts-Indifferenzkurven numerisch her, d.h. Kombinationen von Projektvolatilität und Nominalsteuersatz, die zu identischen Investitionsschwellen führen. Diese neuartige Darstellungsform verdeutlicht, unter welchen Bedingungen ein einheitlicher Steuereinfluss auf die Bereitschaft zur Risikoübernahme vorliegt. Unsere Simulationen zeigen, dass eine Erhöhung des Steuersatzes bei geringer Volatilität tendenziell die Bereitschaft zur Risikoübernahme erhöht. Die Einführung einer Abgeltungssteuer reduziert die Bereitschaft, riskante Investitionen zu realisieren. Die Modellergebnisse erweitern die unter Sicherheit bekannten Steuerwirkungen auf Investitionen im Hinblick auf Unsicherheit, Irreversibilität und die Bereitschaft zur Risikoübernahme.

Microsimulation based on income tax statistics may be useful in tax reform discussions. Unfortunately, access to appropriate data is still rather restricted and expensive for ad-hoc analyses, or individual data is often even not available at all. In this paper we take Germany and its data situation as a proxy for many countries' restrictions in terms of tax data availability. Analyzing how much reliability and robustness of results we lose if we employ group simulation instead of microsimulation, we compare both methods. Investigating tax scale effects by the group model leads to very good results. Determining the financial effects of modified tax bases, the deviation from the microsimulation results increases especially if tax base cuts vary between taxpayers. In addition, we take account of the class with taxpayers with a negative taxable income. Neglecting this class we identify a systematic underestimation of the financial consequences of a modified tax base with the group model assuming a progressive tax scale. If the group simulation data is not arranged according to the taxable income but rather according to the total amount of income we find in tendency higher deviations from the microsimulation results. Quantifying tax revenue effects of alternative tax settings the group simulation model represents a good compromise between the desire to capture the complex reality and the achievable accuracy when facing limited resources and data. Our group simulation model will be of major interest especially for analyses of rather old data, as sufficiently detailed data for micro analyses is usually missing.

We analyze the impact of taxation on the option to defer an investment decision and derive tax rates that do not influence the extent of postponement. Furthermore, we deduce from this option pricing framework a measure of an investor's disposition towards realizing an investment project under risk aversion. We show that capital gains taxation often reduces this disposition, whereas asymmetric tax treatment of profits and losses may compensate this effect at least partially. On this basis, we identify indifferent curves that describe different tax schedules providing constant disposition to invest. These curves enable a comparison of different tax rules and their impact on investment decisions without explicitly referring to the after-tax value of an investment project. Thereby, the decisionmaking process is simplified. Applying individual utility functions we finally analyze the influence of taxation on the investor's – decision and on utility-based decisions. We highlight the overwhelming importance of integrating taxes in typically applied valuation approaches.

An alternative minimum tax (AMT) is often regarded as desirable. We analyze a wealth tax at corporate and personal level that is designed as an AMT as proposed by the German Green Party. This wealth tax is imputable to profit taxes and is hence intended to prevent multiple (multistage) taxation. Referring to data from annual reports and the German Central Bank we model enterprises of different structure, industry, size and legal status. We show that companies in the service sector which generally maintain rather high gearing rates are more frequently subjected to the wealth tax than capital intensive industries. This result runs counter to well-known effects of a common wealth tax. Capital intensive firms, e.g. in the metal industry, are levied with definitive wealth tax only if they have large loss carry-forwards or extremely volatile profits. Furthermore, partnerships often enjoy wealth tax privileges due to uniform taxation at individual level whereas corporations may suffer from the wealth tax at corporate and personal level caused by imputation backlogs. Obviously, the underlying AMT influences corporate dividend policy evoking a push-out effect. We prove that this kind of wealth taxation usually favors financial rather than real investment and encourages outbound investment. Consequently, introducing an AMT discriminates against many firms and investment projects, especially if economic income is lower than taxable income. This proves that whenever income is taxed correctly, AMT is dispensable.

This paper investigates the influence of different systems of current income and capital gains taxation on investor's decision to either carry out an investment in corporate shares or to invest funds alternatively on the capital market. Three basic tax systems are analyzed, a classical corporate tax system with double taxation of profits on corporate and personal level, a shareholder relief system, that reduces double taxation completely. It can be shown that general analytical solutions for the investment problem for different categories of tax regimes, even under certainty, cannot be derived. Applying a growth model, we find under rather restrictive assumptions that the shareholder relief system invokes more severe distortions than the full imputation system. Trying to prove this in a more realistic setting with uncertainty we employ Monte Carlo Simulation for random rates of return and random income tax rates. In many cases, the degree of tax-induced uncertainty is significantly lower under a shareholder relied system than under full imputation. Furthermore, it can be shown that under uncertainty full imputation causes more severe distortions than shareholder relief whenever personal income tax rates are low. In light of international tax competition this is an important result as a reduction of tax rates is taking place or is likely to take place in several countries. Furthermore, the simulation clarifies the trade-off of the opposing effects, i.e. tax and interest rate effects, and the overwhelming impact of capital gains taxation. Apart from tax parameters, we identify the dividend rate and the point in time of selling the shares as important value drivers.

Die (Wieder-)Einführung einer Vermögensteuer ist in den vergangenen Jahren erneut in den Fokus der politischen Diskussion gerückt. Der vorliegende Beitrag vermittelt einen Eindruck von den Belastungswirkungen, die aus der Umsetzung von aktuell vorliegenden Besteuerungskonzepten resultieren würden. Auf der Basis von realen Jahresabschlussdaten wird eine mehrperiodige Veranlagungssimulation durchgeführt, die insbesondere ermöglicht, den zu erwartenden Eigenkapitalverzehr sowie den Anstieg der Steuerbelastung für die betrachtete Unternehmensgruppe zu quantifizieren. Von besonderem Interesse sind hierbei Unternehmen deren laufende Erträge nicht ausreichen, um die Belastungen durch die Vermögensteuer zu tragen und damit einem Substanzverzehr ausgesetzt sind. Es zeigt sich, dass etwa die Hälfte der Unternehmen im Untersuchungszeitraum von sechs Jahren in mindestens einem Jahr einen Substanzverzehr erfährt. Der Vermögensteuer kommt somit keinesfalls der vielfach postulierte Charakter einer eher mäßig belastenden und im Wesentlichen substanzverschonenden Steuer zu. Zusatzbelastungen von knapp 100 bis zu 300% der Ertragsteuerlast sind keine Seltenheit und veranschaulichen das Gefährdungspotenzial dieser Steuer für den Wirtschaftsstandort Deutschland.

Under uncertainty and irreversibility, real option-based models are widely accepted for assessing investment projects. So far the existing post-tax analyses do not provide a general analytical description of investor reactions towards profit tax rate changes. This paper sets out to fill part of the void. We implement a simple tax system and focus on risky capital market investment and an option to wait. Taxes affect risk-free and risky capital market investment asymmetrically and hence cause distortions. We analytically identify a set of neutral tax rates (tax regimes) that preserve the critical post-tax investment threshold in case of tax rate changes as well as general normal and paradoxical settings. Unlike for other tax paradoxa neither depreciation rules nor loss offset restrictions are responsible for the observed paradoxical reaction. Identifying normal and paradoxical tax regimes can be regarded as a first step to a generalized description of tax effects under uncertainty, both for individual project evaluation as well as for understanding tax effects on an aggregate level.

Steueroptimale Rechtsformwahl: Die Besteuerung von Personen- und Kapitalgesellschaften und Mischformen im Vergleich.Dieses Studienbuch verdeutlicht die steuerlichen Konsequenzen, die aus der Wahl einer bestimmten Rechtsform resultieren. Es zeigt zunächst allgemein, welche Faktoren die steuerliche Belastung von Personen- und Kapitalgesellschaften sowie deren Kombination beeinflussen. Danach vergleichen die Autorinnen die einzelnen Rechtformen miteinander und führen Steuerbelastungsrechnungen für verschiedene Ereignisse im Leben des Unternehmens durch. Gründung, laufende Besteuerung und Umwandlung werden eingehend betrachtet.Durch klar definierte Lernziele ermöglicht das Buch Studierenden der BWL - insbesondere mit den Schwerpunkten Betriebswirtschaftliche Steuerlehre und Rechnungswesen - eine gezielte Klausur- und Prüfungsvorbereitung. Aufgaben nach jedem Kapitel helfen, das Gelernte zu rekapitulieren und einzuüben.Für die 8. Auflage wurde der Inhalt vollständig überarbeitet. Sämtliche bis Dezember 2020 ergangenen Gesetzesänderungen sowie die aus den Reformen der letzten Jahre resultierenden Verwaltungsanweisungen, Kommentierungen und die neue Rechtsprechung wurden eingearbeitet. (Verlagstext)