Does a Wealth Tax Discriminate against Domestic Investors?

Abstract

This paper studies the impact of a capital-income tax and a wealth tax on investor behavior in an efficient capital market under various assumptions regarding uncertainty and time horizons. We show that investors who face capital taxes have a lower discount rate, but that their willingness to pay for a company’s stock is not affected by these taxes. In a second step, we show that if a company owner increases her required rate of return from the company because of capital taxes, she will harm the company’s market value and thus her own wealth.