Estate Taxes and the Investment Decision in Closely Held Firms
研究了遗产税如何影响封闭持股企业的投资行为，发现遗产税可能导致企业放弃能增加价值的投资项目，且这种倾向随税率和所有者年龄增加。
Closely held businesses differ from their publicly held counterparts in the relative importance assigned to planning for estate taxes. When faced with the prospect of an estate taxes liability, owners of closely held businesses may alter their investment behavior. This essay presents a simple model of the investment decision in a closely held business. While finance theory prescribes that firms maximize their value through funding capital projects with positive net present values, this model suggests that the presence of estate taxes may induce the firm to reject projects which, if funded, would add value to the firm. Further, the propensity to pass on value-adding projects increases with both the estate tax rate and the age of the business owner.