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There is growing empirical evidence in context of the developed countries that greater tax aggressiveness of companies is associated with higher incentives to their executives. However, the same cannot be extended to emerging economies like India due to their distinct compensation practices. The present study, therefore, aims to bridge this gap by exploring the relationship between executive compensation and corporate tax aggressiveness in context of the Indian economy.

The sample comprises a subset of the S&P BSE 500 Index companies for FY 2014–15 through 2018–19. A fixed effects panel model has been used to discern the impact of executive compensation on corporate tax aggressiveness with and without the moderating effect of a proxy for corporate governance strength.

The econometric analysis evinces a significant negative impact of the fixed executive compensation on tax aggressiveness, specifically with the moderation of corporate governance strength which was found to have a positive effect on the said relation. In addition, no significant relationship was observed between variable compensation and tax aggressiveness. These results were robust to an alternate specification of the corporate governance strength proxy as well as the system generalised method of moments estimation employed to deal with endogeneity.

The study provides insights on a poor interest alignment between shareholders and managers in India owing to an insignificant amount of variable pay in the total executive compensation.

Profit shifting is a matter of great concern for governments internationally. It leads to the loss of tax revenues and puts multinational corporations (MNCs) in a disparate position. Lately, due to the aggressive stance of the Indian taxman, several Indian MNCs are planning to minimise their tax outflows. This paper aims to study profit-shifting drawing from the institutional theory for the Indian MNCs.

The sample comprises 679 MNCs listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange or the National Stock Exchange with either Indian parents with foreign subsidiaries (553) or Indian subsidiaries of a foreign parent (126) for FY 2013–14 to FY 2018–19. A fixed-effect panel regression technique was invoked to examine tax rate differential motivated profit-shifting undertaken by MNCs with the moderating effect of international presence and patents.

The results suggest that MNCs shift their profits to take advantage of differences in global tax rates when they have an international presence in at least five tax countries. Further, profit shifting is likely towards no-tax compared to low-tax countries, with the presence of patents in an MNC group having no significant impact.

Losses to the government revenue due to profit shifting by MNCs are rather severe in emerging economies. The study provides the first empirical evidence of the direction of profit shifting with the moderating effect of the extent of global presence and group patents, which would interest scholars in the field. The findings provide valuable insights to the policymakers, highlighting the urgent need to operationalise the general anti-avoidance taxation rules.

There is mixed evidence in the extant literature on the firm value implications of corporate tax aggressiveness in the developed economies. There are, however, limited studies that discuss this relationship in the case of emerging economies. The present study aims to bridge this research gap by exploring the relationship between corporate tax aggressiveness and firm value in context of the Indian economy.

The sample comprises 547 S&P BSE 500 (Standard and Poor's Bombay Stock Exchange 500) Index companies for Financial Year (FY) 2009–10 through FY 2018–19. A fixed-effects panel model has been used to discern the impact of corporate tax aggressiveness on firm value with and without the moderating effect of a proxy for corporate governance strength.

The results highlight a significant negative relationship between corporate tax aggressiveness and firm value in India, whilst the analysis on the moderating effect of corporate governance strength on this relationship revealed a mix of significant and insignificant results. These results were robust to an alternate specification of the corporate governance strength proxy, the system GMM estimation employed to deal with endogeneity and a change in the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) regulation brought into effect by the Companies Act, 2013.

The study reveals a firm value discount associated with corporate tax aggressiveness in India which is likely due to its ability to increase opportunities for wealth expropriation by managers. This can further be attributed to the ineffective corporate governance mechanisms that make agency problems more severe in the case of emerging economies like India.