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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between tax avoidance and earnings persistence in the light of a developing economy, with the main focus on China.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between tax avoidance and earnings persistence in the light of a developing economy, with the main focus on China.
Design/methodology/approach
In the analysis, the author conducts a survey on the tax avoidance situation of Chinese listed companies from 2012 to 2020. Then, a multivariate regression analysis is performed in order to analyse the relationship between corporate tax avoidance and earnings persistence.
Findings
The findings of the present study show that tax avoidance has a significant positive effect on earnings persistence. However, when the degree of tax avoidance is high, the “risk effect” of tax avoidance exceeds the “value effect”, and tax avoidance will reduce the persistence of earnings. This conclusion is even more prominent when the company is non-state-owned. Further research shows the increase of institutional investors’ shareholding ratio can improve “value effect” of tax avoidance, lessen “risk effect” of tax avoidance, and positively affect the relationship between tax avoidance and earnings persistence.
Practical implications
This study provides evidence for investors to understand the dual effect of tax avoidance on earnings persistence. The results may have implications for regulatory bodies. They can provide a better understanding of the corporate governance role of institutional investors in curbing opportunistic tax avoidance.
Originality/value
This study enriches the research on tax avoidance effects by analysing the impact of tax avoidance on earnings persistence. This study also compensates for the shortcomings of analysing earnings persistence mainly from the perspective of tax differences in the past, and promotes the study of the corporate governance effects of institutional investors under different levels of tax avoidance.
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Md Shamim Hossain, Md.Sobhan Ali, Md Zahidul Islam, Chui Ching Ling and Chorng Yuan Fung
This study examines the impact of profitability, firm size and leverage on corporate tax avoidance in Bangladesh, an emerging South Asian economy.
Abstract
Purpose
This study examines the impact of profitability, firm size and leverage on corporate tax avoidance in Bangladesh, an emerging South Asian economy.
Design/methodology/approach
A balanced panel data of 62 firms from Dhaka and Chittagong stock exchanges in Bangladesh from 2009 to 2020 were used to run the regression. This study employed the fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) and dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) to examine the hypotheses.
Findings
The findings show that large firms positively impact corporate tax avoidance. Similarly, profitability and leverage are positively associated with tax avoidance, and the results are significant. Furthermore, the study conducts robustness tests that confirm the findings.
Research limitations/implications
The use of cash effective tax rate (ETR) to investigate firms’ tax avoidance practices poses some limitations, and the results should be interpreted cautiously.
Practical implications
The current study may help policymakers better enhance tax collection from business firms. The findings could serve as a valuable input for effectively monitoring tax collection from large profit-earning firms.
Originality/value
To the authors' best knowledge, this is the first historical attempt in Bangladesh to use panel data to examine the relationship between the firm’s level characteristics and corporate tax avoidance. Panel data often provides greater flexibility with large data, simplifying calculation and statistical analysis.
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Mouna Guedrib and Fatma Bougacha
This paper aims to study the impact of tax avoidance on corporate risk. It also examines the moderating impact of tax risk on the relationship between tax avoidance and firm risk.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to study the impact of tax avoidance on corporate risk. It also examines the moderating impact of tax risk on the relationship between tax avoidance and firm risk.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on available information in the DATASTREAM database about a sample of French firms listed in the CAC 40 from 2010 to 2022, the study uses the feasible generalized least squares method to investigate the impact of tax avoidance on firm risk and the moderating impact of tax risk. To check the robustness of our results, the authors changed the measurement of variables to identify potential biases and they significantly mitigated the endogeneity concerns using instrumental variable regression. Additional estimations were performed, first by using book-tax differences (BTD) and its components, i.e. temporary and permanent, and second by retesting hypotheses of years before the outbreak of the corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.
Findings
The results show that tax avoidance negatively affects the firm risk while tax risk has a positive effect on firm risk. More importantly, tax risk moderates the negative impact of tax avoidance on the firm risk. When tax avoidance is associated with a high level of tax risk, it leads to a high firm risk. Accordingly, tax avoidance should be considered in conjunction with tax risk when studying the effect put on the firm risk. Further analyses indicate that tax risk moderates the negative relationship between permanent BTD and firm risk.
Research limitations/implications
The major limitation of this study is that it focuses only on French-listed firms, which make it difficult to generalize the results. Furthermore, the authors did not introduce governance variables into our models. An effective governance system and transparent information can reduce some of the perverse effects of risky tax avoidance by reducing the tax avoidance costs. The obtained results are of great interest to researchers who need to include the tax risk concept in their examination of the tax avoidance impacts.
Practical implications
The results are useful for investors wishing to make sound decisions regarding risky tax avoidance practices. Furthermore, the results may signal the need for French policymakers to make more efforts to reduce risky tax avoidance activities that are harmful to investors. They must enforce the existence and the reporting of a tax risk management strategy by firms.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the growing body of literature on the tax avoidance effects with a special focus on firm risk. This study provides the first French evidence of the role of tax risk in the relationship between tax avoidance and firm risk.
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This paper aims to examine whether tax disclosure in Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)-based sustainability reporting mitigates aggressive tax avoidance.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine whether tax disclosure in Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)-based sustainability reporting mitigates aggressive tax avoidance.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a multiple regression method for 714 nonspecially taxed firms listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange in 2014–2018.
Findings
The findings demonstrate that disclosing tax payments in GRI-based sustainability reports reduces aggressive tax avoidance. Additional analysis indicates that the number of GRI-based sustainability reports positively affects aggressive tax avoidance. However, disclosing tax payments in multiple GRI-based sustainability reports negatively affects aggressive tax avoidance.
Originality/value
Recent prior studies demonstrate that aggressive tax avoidance does not indicate an organizational culture that devalues corporate social responsibility. This paper argues that firms cannot find the link between tax and corporate social responsibility when tax payments are not incorporated in sustainability reports. GRI considers tax a sustainability issue and seeks to institutionalize this concept by recommending that firms disclose taxes in their sustainability reports. This research analyses whether disclosing taxes in GRI-based sustainability reports may serve as a form of soft law by convincing firms that tax is a sustainability issue, thereby reducing their tax avoidance. This topic has received little attention in previous research.
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Paul L. Baker, Peiwei Lyu and Pietro Perotti
This paper examines the relationship between tax avoidance and accounting comparability. The authors argue that aggressive tax behavior impairs the comparability of financial…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper examines the relationship between tax avoidance and accounting comparability. The authors argue that aggressive tax behavior impairs the comparability of financial statements by altering the accounting function, which maps economic events into accounting data.
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical analysis is based on a large sample of United States (US) firms. The authors use raw and industry-adjusted effective tax rates (ETRs) to proxy tax avoidance. The authors use the measure of accounting comparability developed by De Franco et al. (2011), which aims to capture the similarity of the accounting function.
Findings
The authors find that firms with more aggressive tax avoidance strategies have substantially lower accounting comparability. The evidence also shows that the negative effect of tax avoidance on accounting comparability is driven by firms with aggressive tax planning strategies beyond the industry norm. Furthermore, using an alternative measure of accounting comparability as a function of pre-tax income, the authors continue to find evidence of the negative effect of tax avoidance behavior. Importantly, this provides evidence that the effect of aggressive tax planning is not limited to the reported tax expense, but affects the comparability of the overall financial reporting system.
Originality/value
The authors identify a new potential cost of tax aggressive activities, being the loss of accounting comparability as driven by tax aggressive activities. The results contribute to the literature on the costs of tax avoidance and on the determinants of accounting comparability.
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To the best of the author’s knowledge, the author conducts the first detailed review on the impact of ownership variables on corporate tax avoidance, based on 69 archival studies…
Abstract
Purpose
To the best of the author’s knowledge, the author conducts the first detailed review on the impact of ownership variables on corporate tax avoidance, based on 69 archival studies over the two last decades.
Design/methodology/approach
Referring to an agency-theoretical framework, the author differentiates between six categories of ownership (institutional, state, family, foreign, managerial and cross-ownership/ownership concentration). The author also includes research on ownership proxies as moderators of other determinants of tax avoidance.
Findings
The review indicates that most research refers to institutional, state and family ownership. Moreover, except for state ownership, no clear tendencies on the impact of included ownership types can be found in line with the author’s agency-theoretical framework.
Research limitations/implications
Regarding research recommendations, among others, the author stresses the urgent need for recognizing heterogeneity within and interactions between ownership proxies. Researchers should also properly address endogeneity concerns by advanced econometric models (e.g. by the difference-in-difference approach).
Practical implications
As international standard setters have implemented massive reform initiatives on both tax avoidance and corporate governance, this literature review underlines the huge interaction between those topics. Firms should carefully analyze their ownership structure and change their tax planning due to owners' individual tax preferences.
Originality/value
This analysis makes useful contributions to prior research by focusing on six categories of ownership and their impact on tax avoidance in (multinational) firms and moderating effects. The author provides a detailed overview about current archival research and likes to guide researchers to focus on ownership heterogeneity and endogeneity concerns.
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Hanh Minh Thai, Khue Ngoc Dang, Normaziah Mohd Nor, Hien Thi Nguyen and Khiem Van Nguyen
This study aims to investigate the relationship between corporate tax avoidance and stock price crash risk and the moderating effects of corporate governance.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the relationship between corporate tax avoidance and stock price crash risk and the moderating effects of corporate governance.
Design/methodology/approach
This study investigates the relationship between corporate tax avoidance and stock price crash risk using the sample consisting of listed firms in Vietnam for the period of 2011–2020 using panel regressions.
Findings
The authors find that there is a positive relationship between tax avoidance and stock price crash risk. Foreign ownership weakens the impacts of tax avoidance on stock price crash risk, while managerial ownership strengthens the impacts. Female Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) and female chairpersons weaken this relationship. Board gender diversity and state ownership have insignificant moderating impacts.
Practical implications
These findings could help the stock market build better internal monitoring mechanisms to reduce the impacts of tax avoidance on future stock price crash risk. Investors can recognize the characteristics of corporate governance, especially foreign ownership, managerial ownership, female CEOs and female chairpersons when making investment decisions. The policy makers should consider policies to attract foreign investment and support women entrepreneurship.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the literature on the impacts of tax avoidance on stock price crash risk in emerging countries. This paper is the first to investigate the influence of corporate governance mechanisms including state ownership, foreign ownership, female CEOs and chairpersons and board gender diversity on this relationship.
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The purpose of this study is to analyse the recently highly debated topics of the Tax avoidance–Corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance nexus and to further investigate…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to analyse the recently highly debated topics of the Tax avoidance–Corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance nexus and to further investigate the impacts of engaging in socially responsible activities on financial performance and bank debt financing constraints, at a disaggregate level (firm level).
Design/methodology/approach
The sample for this study includes all publicly listed companies headquartered in BRICS countries from 2014 to 2020. The study employs detailed financial accounting information and the Environmental, Social and Governance scores released by Thomas Reuters EIKON database, which is regarded as the most authoritative indicator of CSR performance. Both pooled and panel data regression models are employed, and robustness tests that use a wide range of model specifications, measures and estimators are performed.
Findings
The study finds robust evidence that corporate tax avoidance is negatively associated with CSR performance. The authors also find that firms with better CSR performance have healthier financial performance and lower costs of bank debt. Overall, the research findings are supportive of the corporate culture theory, which suggests that firms behave ethically consistent in both CSR practices and tax payment.
Originality/value
CSR performance and the engagement of tax avoidance activities have been documented in the literature to be vital elements investors care about. This study focuses specifically on the association between them and further elaborates their impacts in the financial markets. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study which investigates the nexus in a sample that includes the most powerful emerging markets in the world. The results of this study are generalisable in terms of the implications of CSR management to many other emerging markets.
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Arfah Habib Saragih and Syaiful Ali
This paper aims to study the impact of the adoption of eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) on corporate tax avoidance.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to study the impact of the adoption of eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) on corporate tax avoidance.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper used a quantitative method with panel data regression models using a sample of firms listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange from 2011 to 2018.
Findings
The regression results demonstrate that XBRL implementation does not have any impact on corporate tax avoidance. The results indicate that tax avoidance is not reduced following XBRL adoption. This report shows unexpected and unfavourable outcomes of XBRL financial reporting in a developing country.
Research limitations/implications
This study employs a sample of firms from one emerging country only.
Practical implications
The study proposes several implications for using XBRL in tax reporting, which may help the tax authorities reduce tax avoidance. Regulators need to develop adequate taxonomies with standardized extensions related to tax information in the XBRL format. They include tax tags from financial statements and tax tags from the disclosure section, to gain more comprehensive corporate tax information.
Originality/value
This study proposes and tests an explanation for the effect of XBRL adoption on corporate tax avoidance in the context of a developing country.
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Saeed Rabea Baatwah and Khaled Hussainey
This study aims to examine how new regulation changes for the auditor’s report, so-called key audit matters (KAMs), influence tax avoidance.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine how new regulation changes for the auditor’s report, so-called key audit matters (KAMs), influence tax avoidance.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses data from firms listed on the Omani capital market over the period 2012–2019 and analyzes these data using pooled panel data regression with a robust standard error. It uses two common proxies for tax avoidance and two measures for the KAMs disclosure requirement.
Findings
This study finds a sharp decrease in the effective tax rate following the introduction of KAMs disclosure and the issuance of more KAMs in audit reports. This result is supported by several robustness checks. In an additional analysis, the authors observe interesting results, indicating that real earnings management mediates this association, while the audit committee plays a moderating role. The authors do not find a moderating effect of Big4 on this association, but find discrepancies within the Big4 firms in relation to this moderating effect.
Originality/value
The results of this study indicate that although the introduction of the KAMs disclosure requirement may have positive consequences, it may also lead to unintended negative consequences. This conclusion has not been comprehensively reported in literature.
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