This paper highlights how corporate income taxes create incentives for banks to securitize loans. Most banks are subject to corporate income taxation while special purpose corporations that hold securitized loans are not. We present a model that analyzes different banks’ securitization incentives. The model shows that if a bank has significant loan origination opportunities but limited deposit market power, its incentive to sell loans is an increasing function of its corporate income tax rate. Empirical tests of the model’s predictions are carried out on two different samples of U.S. commercial banks’ loan sales during the period 2001 to 2008: one sample using Call Report data and the other sample based on Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) filings. Consistent with the model’s predictions, both sets of data show that banks having relatively high lending opportunities are more likely to sell mortgages and non-mortgage loans when they operate in states that impose higher corporate income taxes. An implication is that corporate taxation of bank income may have contributed to the recently excessive growth in securitization.