Abstract
The Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 reduced shareholder-level taxes on
equity income. If shareholder-level taxation is a component of cost of equity capital, then the cost of
equity capital should decrease after the Tax Act. We find that the cost of equity capital decreases by
1.02% and that the decline is smaller for firms largely held by institutional investors to whom the tax
rate reduction does not apply. These results suggest that the Tax Act lowered the cost of equity
capital and add further evidence to the question of whether taxes impact valuation.
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2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.