TY  - JOUR
AU  - Graham,John R.
AU  - Lang,Mark H.
AU  - Shackelford,Douglas A.
TI  - Employee Stock Options, Corporate Taxes and Debt Policy
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 9289
PY  - 2002
Y2  - October 2002
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9289
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9289.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
John Graham
Duke University
Fuqua School of Business
100 Fuqua Drive
Durham, NC 27708-0120
Tel: 919/660-7857
Fax: 919/660-8038
E-Mail: john.graham@duke.edu

Douglas Shackelford
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Kenan-Flagler Business School
Campus Box 3490, McColl Building
Chapel Hill, NC  27599-3490
Tel: 919/962-3197
Fax: 919/962-4727
E-Mail: doug_shack@unc.edu
AB  - We find that employee stock option deductions lead to large aggregate tax savings for Nasdaq 100 and S&P 100 firms and also affect corporate marginal tax rates. For Nasdaq firms, the median marginal tax rate is 31 percent when option deductions are ignored but falls to 5 percent when one accounts for the deductions. For S&P firms, however, option deductions do not affect marginal tax rates to a large degree. In the spirit of DeAngelo and Masulis (1980), option deductions are important nondebt tax shields that can affect corporate policies. We find evidence consistent with option deductions substituting for interest deductions in corporate capital structure decisions. This evidence explains in part why some firms appear to be underlevered.
ER  -