Wem droht die Zinsschranke? Eine empirische Untersuchung zur Identifikation der Einflussfaktoren

One important aspect of the German corporate tax reform 2008/2009 is the introduction of an EBITDA-based interest deduction limitation. This article focuses on the questions how many and which companies are threatened by this so-called “interest ceiling rule”. Based on an analysis of 77.464 financial statements of German corporations this limitation is relevant for 561 up to 1.511 companies. Thus, this thin-capitalization rule affects more companies than expected by politics. Additionally, we derived several hypotheses from theory concerning possible distortions caused by this rule and tested them empirically. As a result, the “interest ceiling” does affect systematically large, less profitable companies, those with high collaterals as well as holding and real estate companies. Consequently, domestic corporate decisions will be distorted and the theorem of production efficiency is violated.