DOES THE TAX SYSTEM FAVOR INVESTMENT IN HIGH‐TECH OR SMOKE‐STACK INDUSTRIES?

In this paper, we examine whether differential use of depreciable assets gives rise to differential tax treatment of high‐technology industries relative to other industries. We calculate the total effective tax rate on a marginal investment in each of 34 assets, and weighting by the use of these assets, we calculate total effective tax rates for 73 industries. We find considerable variation within the high‐tech sector and within the more traditional sector, but for the case of a taxable firm with a given debt/equity ratio, we do not find any systematic differences between overall rates in the two sectors.