Tax Incentive Heterogeneity Between Shareholders, Voting Rights Power, and Capital Structure

Using a sample of public European firms and a multitude of shifts in cross-country taxation data, we examine the influence of individual shareholders' tax incentives on capital structure. We find that the largest shareholder's tax incentive for debt positively influences leverage. We also find that the second-largest shareholder's tax incentive for debt is incrementally relevant for leverage. However, tax incentive heterogeneity between shareholders reduces the positive influence of the largest shareholder's tax incentive on leverage. Finally, we document that the relevance of the largest shareholder's tax incentive for capital structure decisions is increasing in the level of voting rights power