배당세율과 법인세율의 인하가 기업의 내재자본비용에 미치는 영향

초록

The tax rate on dividend was reduced in according to the tax reform of 2000 in Korea. At the end of 2000, instead of reintroducing Global Taxation on Financial Income, dividend withholding tax rate was reduced from 20% to 15%. In addition, at the end of 2001, income tax rate including dividend tax rate was reduced from 40% to 36%, and corporate tax rate was reduced from 28% to 27% in according to the tax reform of 2001 in Korea. But, tax rate reduction from tax acts of 2000 and 2001 has different effects to a firm's investors. Dividend tax rate reduction in 2000 affects to the individual investors who are not qualified for the Global Taxation, and dividend and corporate tax rate reduction in 2001 affects to the individual investors who are qualified for the Global Taxation and corporate investors. If shareholder－level taxation is a component of a firm's cost of equity capital, then the cost of equity capital is expected to decrease after the dividend tax rate and corporate tax rate reduction. We test whether firms' cost of equity capital decreased after the tax act of 2000 and 2001. Tax rate reduction from tax acts of 2000 and 2001 give us the opportunity to analyze not only the relation between taxes and asset prices but also the existence of marginal investors. Using three ex ante measures of implied cost of equity capital, my univariate tests show that the mean cost of equity capital decreases by 3.5% from 2000 to 2001, and the mean cost of equity capital decreases by 1.6% from 2001 to 2002. This result provided preliminary evidence that the decrease in dividend and corporate tax rates reduced the cost of equity capital. To investigate the effect of the tax act on firms' cost of equity capital, I estimate cost of equity capital for 12 quarters from 2000 to 2003 excluding the first quarter in each year. The results of the multivariate regressions suggest that after controlling for other non－tax factors that affect required returns, the cost of equity capital for the sample firms decreases on average 3.4% after the tax act of 2000. Further, the decrease in the cost of equity capital is smaller for firms with higher levels of institutional ownership as expected. The results also suggest that the cost of equity capital for the sample firms decreases after the tax act of 2001. But, relative to 2001, the decrease in the cost of equity capital is found only for firms with higher levels of institutional ownership. This implies that the decrease in the cost of equity capital after the tax act of 2001 is not caused by the individual investors because dividend tax rate reduction only affects to the individual investors who are qualified for the Global Taxation. the decrease in the cost of equity capital after the tax act of 2001 seems to be mainly caused by the corporate investors who affected by the corporate tax reduction. Taken together, my results provide further evidence that the dividend and corporate tax rate reduction of 2000 and 2001 in Korea reduced the cost of equity capital and are consistent with existing evidence that shareholder level taxes impact equity value.

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