Questions to answer

9 important questions on Questions to answer

What is a tax?

Tax is a compulsory levy on individuals or entities imposed by the government. There is no specific benefit in return.

What are the most important taxes in terms of tax revenue?

Individual income tax, VAT (and social security contributions à different type of taxes, you get something in return)

What is a statutory, average, marginal and effective tax rate?

-Statutory tax rate: what is prescribed in the law
-Average tax rate: from the first to the last euro of tax base
-Marginal tax rate: on a one euro change in the tax base
-Effective tax rate: the same as average tax rate (e.g. for corporations: tax expense divided by pretax income = accounting income à because the tax rate is not available to the public)
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Which tax rate is relevant for business decisions?

-Marginal: for additional investments
-Average: for the initial investment decision

What are the main difference in the taxation of corporations and sole proprietorships/partnerships?

Corporation:
- Corporate tax applies at the corporate level and shareholder level taxes apply for dividend distributions and capital gain (box 2 if larger than 5% shareholdings) à Two level of taxation, what not necessarily means that the tax burden is higher
- Legal personality


Partnership:
- All business profits and losses are taxed at the level of the partner à Only one level of taxation
- No legal personality

What are the difference between economic and juridical double taxation?

Economic double taxation: same economic person is taxed twice (e.g. several corporations that form a group) à avoided this by the participation exemption

Juridical (traditional) double taxation: same taxable person in a juridical sense is taxed twice (i.e., exactly the same juridical or natural person)

What are the characteristics of a one-book system and two-book system?

One-book system: taxable income is formally tied to accounting income (e.g., Germany, Austria)

Two-book system: taxable income and accounting income are separated (e.g., Netherlands, US)

What is a tax loss carry forward and how are tax losses offset?

A TLCF occurs if companies incur a loss that cannot be offset with the previous period. TLCFs are carried forward in the future and be offset with future taxable income (minimum taxation may apply). Companies prefer to carry it backwards because you get an immediate refund and you do not know what the future is going to bring.

What do you have to take into account, in addition to nominal corporate income tax rates, to make tax burdens in different countries comparable

- Organizational form that is chosen and the taxation associated with it

In case of corporations:
- What is the tax burden upon profit distributions?
- How is the tax base determined?
- Are there reliefs for cascade effects (i.e. economic double taxation)

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