excess-profits tax

excess-profits tax
/ek"ses prof"its/
a tax on the profits of a business enterprise in excess of the average profits for a number of base years, or of a specified rate of return on capital.
[1910-15]

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      a tax levied on profits in excess of a stipulated standard of “normal” income. There are two principles governing the determination of excess profits. One, known as the war-profits principle, is designed to recapture wartime increases in income over normal peacetime profits of the taxpayer. The other, identified as the high-profits principle, is based on income in excess of some statutory rate of return on invested capital.

      The modern excess-profits tax was first instituted during World War I as a revenue measure and an instrument of curbing excess profits attributable to the war. Excess-profits taxes were levied during World War II and the Korean War (1950–53) in most of the countries whose business earnings were affected by the war. Excess-profits taxes based on the high-profits principle have become part of the peacetime tax structure of a few countries such as Denmark and several South American countries.

      The economic effects of an excess-profits tax are usually reckoned in terms of two basic criteria: (1) their efficacy in siphoning off wartime “windfalls” in order to bring about a stabilizing effect on the economy; (2) their effect on economic incentives, production levels, and business expenditure. The integration of an excess-profits tax within the total tax structure of a country, particularly in relation to existing corporation taxes and individual income taxes, and the determination of what is “excess” also pose serious problems.

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Universalium. 2010.

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