I'm in a conversation about taxation, specifically the balance of corporate tax versus tax on dividends. There is a point of view that incentivizing keeping money in the company (as opposed to paying out profits as dividends) is beneficial because it encourages investment.
My view is that dividend income can be reinvested just the same as retained profits, and in many cases into more profitable opportunities than would have been available inside the company, so the benefit of encouraging lock-in is at best debatable. But the strength of this argument, I suppose, depends on how much of the dividend is in fact reinvested, on average. Do we have any studies about this?
What fraction of dividends gets reinvested rather than consumed?
byu/phenomenal-rhubarb inAskEconomics
Posted by phenomenal-rhubarb