Personal taxes, inflation and market valuation

In an inflation‐non‐indexed progressive tax system, inflation results in a ‘bracket‐creep’ effect that reduces the demand for corporate debt while the tax‐deductibility of nominal interest makes the use of debt financing cheaper. The interactive effect of inflation and differential dividend and capital gains taxes on the value of a levered firm is analyzed in this paper. Under a non‐indexed progressive tax system, inflation decreases the value of the unlevered firm but the effect of inflation on the firm's debt‐to‐asset ratio is theoretically indeterminate. The gain from leverage is also derived and compared with other valuation models.