Impact of fiscal policies in companies’ decision towards operational leases

• Autor(a) principal: Pires, Ana Filipa da Silva
• Data de Publicação: 2013
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/17475
• topic: Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Economia e Gestão

The need for capital financing is an on-going issue affecting individuals, organizations and ultimately the economy of a country. Leasing is considered an asset based financing. It allows the lessee to pay the leasing rentals through the cash flows generated from the use of the asset in the business operations. In this context operational leases can be seen as an alternative for companies to broaden their options regarding assets acquisition. Leaseurope annual report for 2011 depicts significant differences in leasing usage across countries. The reasons for the decision making between leasing and purchasing are very different across the countries in the report. So, the aim of the thesis is to study one of the factors that may impact the decision making by challenging operational leases as an alternative to purchase, from a fiscal perspective. Research intends to determine if there is any evidence that fiscal rules are a critical factor in the choice for operational lease. To examine the relation between leasing usage and fiscal rules, a cross sectional study across European countries was performed. Findings show that there is no evidence that fiscal rules play a determinant role in the choice to use operational leases. The results also show that leasing usage follows the GDP growth trends. As GDP growth increases, leasing usage shows higher levels of growth than total investment growth. This means that as the percentage of GDP growth rises there is an increase preference for operational leasing.