We study the economic consequences of anti-loss trafficking rules, which disallow theuse of loss carry-forwards as tax shield after a substantial ownership change. We usestaggered changes to anti-loss trafficking rules in the EU27 Member States, Norwayand United Kingdom from 1998 to 2019 and find that limiting the transfer of tax lossesreduces the number of M&As by 18%. The impairment is driven by ...