The impact of the effective tax rate change on financial assets of commercial banks: The case of Visegrad group countries

Abstract

While many tax professionals have discussed corporate taxation in the banking sector and its effectiveness on bank institutions, investment decisions, bank size, asset structure, or bank rentability, there is little evidence of tax efficiency within V-4 Group. The research on banks and tax rates is mainly based on American data. Few papers solved banking stability and corporate taxes within the European countries. This paper examines effective corporate taxation in the banking sector of the V-4 Group and aims to find out how the effective tax rate change affects commercial banks’ financial assets. In this study, we examine the relationship between variables using regression analysis in which we assess the impact of ETR on bank financial assets. We examined data in the consolidated financial statements data of commercial banks and tested their impact on the economy. Our findings supported the theory that ETR impacts the banking sector, particularly capital and equity financing. However, the results did not prove the research hypothesis, in which we assumed that an increase in ETR would lead to an increase in financial assets. Based on our results, it leads to an increase in equity assets (7.34%) and a decline in debt assets (16.83%).