JOURNAL OF APPLIED BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS
Tax Avoidance and Corporations in the United States—The Effective Tax
Rate Abnormality for the Top Five Percent by Corporate Size
Author(s): Da-Hsien Bao, George C. Romeo
Citation: Da-Hsien Bao, George C. Romeo, (2013) "Tax Avoidance and Corporations in the United States—The Effective Tax Rate Abnormality for the Top Five Percent by Corporate Size," Journal of Applied Business and Economics, Vol. 14, Iss. 4, pp. 88-100
Article Type: Research paper
Publisher: North American Business Press
Abstract:
This paper describes the unusual pattern of corporate effective tax rate by corporate size. We used the
concept of rent seeking to explain this behavior. The entire sample shows there is a positive relation
between effective tax rate and firm size, and there is a positive price-earnings relation. However, the
results for the largest 5% firms are entirely different. Among these firms, there is a negative relation
between effective tax rate of firm size, and the price-earnings relation is less significant. Thus, the largest
corporations are able to invalidate the progressive tax structure.