股東可扣抵稅額減半對公司股利政策及股東持股型態之影響

Abstract

本文以民國102年至104年股東可扣抵稅額減半實施前後之台灣上市及上櫃公司為樣本，針對股東可扣抵稅額減半實施對公司股利政策及股東持股型態所產生的影響，進一步探討下列三點：(1)是否會因部分股利所得重複課稅，造成公司選擇將部份盈餘保留而減少發放股利予股東之現象。(2)股東稅負壓力不同的公司，在減半後其股利政策的調整是否會有所不同。(3)股東是否會利用個人股東與法人股東之課稅規定差異而改變其持股型態以節省稅負。研究結果顯示，未依股東稅負壓力將公司分群時，股利支付率並未因股東可扣抵稅額減半實施而減少，反而顯著增加。但以股東稅負壓力角度切入並將公司分群時，發現股東可扣抵稅額越大(股東稅負壓力越高)之公司，其股利支付率在股東可扣抵稅額減半實施後顯著減少。同時，高法人股東持股比率(股東稅負壓力低)之公司，其股利支付率較減半實施前顯著增加。實證結果說明：(1)股東稅負壓力不同，在稅制變革時之股利政策調整會有所差異。(2)高法人股東持股比率之公司在增稅時，其股利支付較穩定。(3)減半實施後，個人股東為節省稅負而有將其持股轉為稅負壓力較低之法人型態的現象。

In 2015, the amended Income Tax Law was enforced. In this paper, we take Taiwan listed companies and OTC companies as our samples from 2013 to 2015, and focus on the impact of the halved imputation credit on corporate dividend policies and shareholders’ holding types to discuss the following issues: (1) Do companies retain their earnings and reduce dividends due to the partial double taxation of dividends? (2) Do companies under the different tax burden adjust their dividend policies in different ways? (3) Do shareholders change their holding types to avoid tax through the different tax burden between individual shareholders and corporate shareholders? The results show “ the dividend payout ratio significantly increases after the halved imputation credit was implemented” when not grouping companies into different shareholders’ tax burden levels. However, as we expected, when grouping companies into the different shareholders’ tax burden levels and being in view of the tax burden, dividend payout ratio is negatively related to imputation tax credit (high tax burden) and is positively related to the proportion of corporate shareholders (low tax burden). The analyses of the results are as follows: (1) Companies under the different tax burden adjust their dividend policies in different ways when the amended Income Tax Law was enforced. (2) As a company is with the high proportion of corporate shareholders, its dividend payout ratio remains steady when shareholders’ tax burden increases. (3) Individual shareholders change their holding types to corporate shareholders to avoid tax after the halved imputation credit.