We evaluate the profitability of investments in residential property in Germany after unification with a focus on the comparison of East and West Germany. Calculations are carried out for (1) the after-tax return an investor might have expected at the beginning of the 1990s, and (2) the...

We analyze the effect of income taxation with limited loss deduction on investment decisions.An experiment with five treatments was conducted, one without taxation as a reference andfour with taxation and limited loss compensation. The participants’ task was to repeatedlychoose one out of two...

Recently, there have been various proposals in Germany to exempt interest income of individuals from progressive income taxation, and to levy a flat source tax, instead. The isolated introduction of a flat tax on interest income would have a significant effect on all investment and financing...

In Germany, there are four different legal structures for employer-sponsored pension plans. Tax treatment at the firm level as well as at the level of the employee or pensioner differs between these four vehicles. This article evaluates and compares the tax benefit from comparable plans within...

This paper carries out an analysis of individual profitability of life insurance in form of endowment policies which have been very popular in Germany for several decades. We integrate taxes, transaction costs and the possibility of early termination into a model of capital budgeting. The aim of...

This paper discusses how payments from and contributions to a life annuity or a pension scheme can be taxed decision neutrally in the context of a classical income tax. We use the concept of "economic income" in the sense of Johansson and Samuelson. Within the framework of an economic analysis...

In this paper we apply conjoint analysis to study the influence of changes in thetax rate and the tax base on the perceived tax burden. Our results show that themajority of individuals do not make rational tax decisions based on the actual taxburden, but rather use simple decision heuristics....