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 evaluate an indivisible investment project that is carried out in a corporation under very simple premises. In particular, we discuss a one-period model with certainty, the pure domestic case and proportional tax rates. Surprisingly, the decision problem turns out to be rather...

The traditional literature on the CAPM assumes that investor's tax payments simply vanish from the model. This assumption is not at all consistent with the actual behavior of the Treasury. The theory of general equilibrium states that an interest rate rf = 0 will not affect prices if taxes are...

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...

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...

This contribution addresses the substantial tax privilege for businesses introduced by the German Inheritance Tax Act 2009. Advocates of the vast or even entire tax exemption for businesses stress the potential damage of the inheritance tax on businesses, as those often lack liquidity to meet...

Tax planners often choose debt over equity financing. As this has led to increased corporate debt financing, many countries have introduced thin capitalization rules to secure their tax revenues. In a general capital structure model we analyze if thin capitalization rules affect dividend and...