The Tax Treatment of Government Bonds
The Tax Treatment of Government Bonds

Author: Mr.John Norregaard

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 1997-03-01

Total Pages: 26

ISBN-13: 1451844220

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In their effort to finance fiscal deficits at a reasonable cost, governments compete with other users of financial capital. Governments, however, are in the unique position that they are the only debt suppliers that can determine the taxation of debt instruments they issue. Following an overview of the current tax treatment of government bonds in OECD countries, this paper argues that—on purely economic grounds—there are no reasons for exempting interest on government bonds. Administrative difficulties in capturing interest on many other debt instruments in the tax net may, however, provide a rationale for doing so.

The Relative Yields of Tax-Exempt and Taxable Bonds
The Relative Yields of Tax-Exempt and Taxable Bonds

Author: John Chalmers

Publisher:

Published: 2000

Total Pages:

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Fama (1977) and Miller (1977) predict that one minus the corporate tax rate will equate the after-tax yield from a taxable bond to the tax-exempt yield. This prediction is not rejected for short maturity tax-exempt and taxable bonds. However, at long maturities the yields on tax-exempt bonds are higher than predicted by the theory. A popular explanation for this empirical fact is that municipal bonds bear more default risk than comparable taxable bonds. A sample of municipal bonds that are secured by irrevocable escrows of U.S. Treasury securities is used to examine the relation between taxable and tax-exempt yields. The results show that default-free tax-exempt yields display the same tendency to be too high relative to the Fama and Miller prediction. This fact implies that differential default risk does not explain relatively high yields on long-term tax-exempt bonds. This paper also documents a curious fact. U.S. Government secured municipal bonds have higher yields than comparable maturity AAA rated municipal bonds that are not secured by U.S. Treasury bonds.