Analytical and empirical perspectives on the interplay of taxation and regulation in the financial sector. The global financial crisis has prompted economists to rethink fundamental questions on how governments should intervene in the financial sector. Many countries have already begun to reform the taxation and regulation of the financial sector—in the United States, for example, the Dodd–Frank Act became law in 2010; in Europe, different countries have introduced additional taxes on the sector and made substantial progress toward a banking union for the eurozone. Only recently, however, has a new field in economics emerged to study the interplay between public finance and banking. This book offers the latest thinking on the topic by American and European economists. The contributors first explore new conceptual ground, offering rigorous theoretical analyses that help us better understand how tax policy and regulation can contribute to avoiding another crisis or reducing its impact. Contributors then investigate the behavior of financial institutions in response to various forms of taxation and regulation, offering empirical evidence that is vital for policy design. Contributors Thiess Buettner, Jin Cao, Giuseppina Cannas, Gunther Capelle-Blancard, Jessica Cariboni, Brian Coulter, Ernesto Crivelli, Ruud de Mooij, Michael P. Devereux, Katharina Erbe, Ricardo Fenochietto, Marco Petracco Giudici, Timothy J. Goodspeed, Reint Gropp, Olena Havyrlchyk, Michael Keen, Lawrence L. Kreicher, Julia Lendvai, Ben Lockwood, Massimo Marchesi, Donato Masciandaro, Colin Mayer, Robert N. McCauley, Patrick McGuire, Gaëtan Nicodème, Masanori Orihara, Francesco Passarelli, Carola Pessino, Rafal Raciborski, John Vickers, Lukas Vogel, Stefano Zedda

The financial crisis has prompted a reconsideration of the taxation of financial institutions, with practice outstripping principle: France, Germany, the United Kingdom and several other European countries have now introduced some form of bank tax, and the U.S. administration has revived its own proposal for such a charge. This paper considers the structure, appropriate rate, and revenue yield of corrective taxation of financial institutions addressed to two externalities, consequent on excessive risk-taking, prominent in the crisis: those that arise when such institutions are simply allowed to collapse, and those that arise when, to avoid the harm this would cause, their creditors are bailed out. It also asks whether corrective taxation or a regulatory capital requirement is the better way to address these concerns. The results suggest a potential role for taxing bank borrowing, perhaps as an adjunct to minimum capital requirements, at marginal rates that rise quite sharply at low capital ratios (but are likely lower when the government cannot commit to its bailout policy), reaching levels higher than those of the bank taxes so far adopted or proposed.

This concise book gives a unique overview of bank taxation as an alternative or a compliment to prudential regulation or non-revenue taxation. Existing bank taxation is reviewed with a view to eliminating distortions in the tax system, which have incen

This book examines how tax policies contributed to the financial crisis; whether taxation can play a role in the reform efforts to establish a sounder and safer financial system; and the pros and cons of various tax initiatives.

This book contains contributions from prominent practitioners and academics presenting their views on the tax levies on the financial sector from a legal and an economic perspective. (New) tax levies on the financial sector have been an ongoing subject of interest since the financial crisis of the past years. In this book, various ways of taxing the financial sector are discussed.

The so-called bank levy - a tax levied on bank leverage - has been proliferated to date. They are the product of reacting to the global financial crisis that started in the autumn of 2008. Therefore, they can only be understood in the context of the crisis. Since one or two decades, the financial industry has produced much innovation that is to be reflected in taxation. The application of bank levy is thus the result of the reforms initiated in the sphere of financial regulation rather than tax law. Financial and tax laws are different from each other in many respects, however, as it will be discussed below where the constitutional background for the introduction of financial taxes will be explored. In this paper, bank levies; one of the newly introduced financial taxes - are in the centre of interest. In this respect, the paper concerns policy options and regulatory framework.

One of the most complex issues in tax policy today is the treatment of the institutions, products, and services that make up the financial sector. It can be harder to ascertain income, expenses, and profits for financial firms than for firms selling goods and services, and it is easier for individuals and firms to manipulate financial transactions so as to exploit tax loopholes. This volume explores the challenges faced by tax policymakers and identifies modern best practices in several areas: banks, insurance companies, securities companies, investment funds, pension funds, and derivatives.

Taxing Banks Fairly offers an ethical perspective on bank taxation and financial stability to complement the traditional political economy approach. It also considers how a bank levy or financial activities tax, could be used to ensure that big banks m

The financial crisis has generated a high degree of legislative activity both in the area of substantive and procedural financial regulation and in the area of taxation of the financial sector. This article explores criteria for legislative choice (in particular for the European Union) when a given target can be addressed both by regulatory means and by fiscal burdens. Major examples include the (1) choice between capital requirements for financial institutions and the introduction of bank levies, (2) substantive constraints for executive compensation versus a “bonus tax”, and (3) the relationship between the existing European regulatory regime of financial markets and the current project of a “financial transaction tax”. While bank levies can play a meaningful role alongside capital requirements, both the “bonus tax” and the “financial transaction tax” seem less attractive than alternative regulatory options.

That most corporate tax systems favor debt over equity finance is now widely recognized as, potentially, amplifying risks to financial stability. This paper makes a first attempt to explore, empirically, the link between this tax bias and the probability of financial crisis. It finds that greater tax bias is associated with significantly higher aggregate bank leverage, and that this in turn is associated with a significantly greater chance of crisis. The implication is that tax bias makes crises much more likely, and, conversely, that the welfare gains from policies to alleviate it can be substantial—far greater than previous studies, which have ignored financial stability considerations, suggest.