Premium
Valuation effects of recent corporate dividend and income trust distribution tax changes
Author(s) -
AmoakoAdu Ben,
Smith Brian F.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
canadian journal of administrative sciences / revue canadienne des sciences de l'administration
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.347
H-Index - 48
eISSN - 1936-4490
pISSN - 0825-0383
DOI - 10.1002/cjas.49
Subject(s) - dividend , valuation (finance) , income tax , dividend tax , economics , gross income , withholding tax , business , popularity , distribution (mathematics) , monetary economics , international taxation , accounting , state income tax , public economics , finance , tax reform , mathematical analysis , mathematics , psychology , social psychology
We analyze the valuation effects of the Canadian federal government's announcement on November 23, 2005 of a reduction in the taxation of corporate dividends and the announcement on October 31, 2006 of a plan to eliminate the tax‐deductibility of income trust distributions. Though high dividend stocks and income trusts reacted positively to the 2005 announcement, the abnormal returns were greater for income trusts. Conversely, both securities reacted negatively to the 2006 announcement with the decline bigger for income trusts. The larger price reactions of income trusts and the lack of statistical significance in the cross‐sectional tests of the abnormal returns suggest that the popularity of income trusts in Canada was mostly driven by their favourable income tax status. The implications of these findings for scholarship and for practice are discussed. Copyright © 2008 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.