“Taxes and Corporate Finance”
John R. Graham
Forthcoming in B. Espen Eckbo (ed.), Handbook of
Corporate Finance: Empirical Corporate Finance
(Handbooks in Finance Series, Elsevier/North-
Holland), Chapter 5, 2005

This paper reviews tax research related to domestic and multinational capital structure, debt maturity, payout
policy, compensation policy, risk management, earnings management, leasing, pensions, R&D partnerships,
tax shelters, transfer pricing, and organizational form. For each topic, the theoretical arguments explaining
how taxes can affect corporate decision-making and firm value are reviewed, followed by a summary of the
related empirical evidence and a discussion of unresolved issues. Tax research generally supports the
hypothesis that high-tax rate firms pursue policies that provide tax benefits. Many issues remain unresolved,
however, including understanding whether tax effects are of first-order importance, why firms do not pursue
tax benefits more aggressively, and whether corporate actions are affected by investor-level taxes.