Learn, by using a quantitative perspective, how taxes affect the decision-making of businesses and, in turn, how businesses can adjust decisions to affect taxes.
Learn what tax planning is, and what needs to be considered when making decisions with regard to tax planning.
Learn about the recording of taxes in a financial accounting setting.
Learn about the increasing role of tax risk management in businesses.
Enhance understanding of current issues in tax research.

Taxes form an important part of a company’s expenses and cash flow. Traditionally, firms viewed tax expense as a burden, as these resources could not be invested in "real" business opportunities. Therefore, minimizing the tax burden was an important part of the business strategy. In the previous decades, this simplistic view of taxation has started to disappear. Due to the rise of the internet, economic crises and the decrease in government resources, the general public has become more aware of, and interested in the tax practices of organizations. This has led to public scrutiny for firms that are "not paying their fair share" in the eyes of the public. Therefore, firms might no longer be exclusively focused on minimizing the tax burden. They perhaps have to follow a more holistic tax strategy, taking into account different stakeholders and different consequences of their strategy. The goal of this course is to create a broad overview of a company’s tax strategy by analyzing how a company can manage its tax function, which business decisions are influenced by taxation and what the consequences of a firm’s tax strategy can be. Furthermore, this course looks at the reporting of taxes in a financial accounting setting (and how accounting rules influence the tax function). To achieve these goals, this course uses different exercises, book chapters, academic papers and reports. What sets this course apart from other courses typically taught in the field of tax law and tax economics, is its focus on businesses. Tax law courses usually teach you to identify and apply the correct tax laws to a specific situation or problem, whereas tax economics courses usually teach you to apply tax policy decisions and take a macroeconomic approach. This course, on the other hand, teaches you how business decisions are influenced by taxation and what businesses can do to be in control of their tax function. In this course we take both the tax laws and the country’s tax system as given, and we will analyse how business decisions can be influenced by these given laws and systems.

A collection of (academic) articles, book chapters and case studies.

This course is in transition for the master Fiscal Economics.
See the Master Education and Examination Regulations for more information.

The following rule applies to master Fiscal Economics students who started the programme prior to academic year 2024-2025.
TRANSITIONAL REGULATION (EBC4040):
The master Fiscal Economics has been discontinued.
Courses of the Fiscal Economics master’s programme will continue to be offered until and including academic year 2024-2025 with exam opportunities running until and including 2025-2026.


PREREQUISITES:
* Intermediate knowledge of (Corporate) Finance
* Intermediate knowledge of Financial Accounting
* Introductory knowledge of the workings of (international) tax systems (e.g. income tax, corporate tax, dividend tax)