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This study aims to investigate the role of negative media coverage of environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues in deterring tax avoidance. Inspired by media agenda-setting theory and legitimacy theory, this study hypothesises that an increase in ESG negative media coverage should cause a reputational drawback, leading companies to reduce tax avoidance to regain their legitimacy. Hence, this study examines a novel channel that links ESG and taxation.

This study uses panel regression analysis to examine the relationship between negative media coverage of ESG issues and tax avoidance among the largest European entities. This study considers different measures of tax avoidance and negative media coverage.

The results show that negative media coverage of ESG issues is negatively associated with tax avoidance, suggesting that media can act as an external monitor for corporate taxation.

The findings have implications for policymakers and regulators, which should consider tax transparency when dealing with ESG disclosure requirements. Tax disclosure should be integrated into ESG reporting.

The study has social implications related to the media, which act as watchdogs for firms’ irresponsible practices. According to this study’s findings, increased media pressure has the power to induce a better alignment between declared ESG policies and tax strategies.

This study contributes to the literature on the mechanisms that discourage tax avoidance and the literature on the relationship between ESG and taxation by shedding light on the role of media coverage.

Companies avoid taxes in a variety of ways and use different methods to do that, one of the most common being earnings management. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether companies manipulate their financial data in order to reduce taxes paid.

We considered a sample of 63 listed Romanian companies for the period 2016–2021. The Beneish model was used for estimating earnings management, and the effective tax rate was used to measure tax avoidance. The analysis was carried out using regression analysis in Stata13 software.

The findings of the research indicate a negative and statistically significant association between effective tax rate and earnings management, implying that one of the main reasons why companies manipulate their earnings to reduce tax burden and avoid taxes. Moreover, our results show that return on assets (ROA) has a statistically significant negative influence on the effective tax rate. Furthermore, our analysis reveals that firm size, growth, and Big4 audit have no effect on effective tax rate.

Because it analyzes concrete cases using financial data and provides some recommendations for addressing the issue of tax avoidance, this work is useful in advancing both quantitative and qualitative research on this topic. This research is relevant for businesses, governments, regulators, audit professionals and investors.

The study, by analyzing concrete cases using reported financial data, contributes in filling the gap within the literature that results from a lack of scientific research on the relationship between tax avoidance and earnings management, and then it clarifies the nature of the causal connection between them. Moreover, it considers a combination of firm related variables including performance, size and also audit quality.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of family involvement in ownership and governance on the quality of internal auditing.

Leveraging a hand-collected data set of listed family firms from 2014 to 2020, this study uses regression analyses to investigate the impact of family ownership, family involvement on the board, family CEO and the generational stage of the family business on the quality of internal auditing.

The results provide evidence that family ownership is positively associated with the quality of internal auditing, while later generational stages of family businesses have the opposite effect. Additional analyses reveal that the presence of a sustainability board sub-committee moderates the relationship between generational stages of family businesses and the quality of internal auditing function.

This paper does not consider country-institutional factors and other potentially family-related antecedents or governance factors that may affect the quality of internal auditing.

The results are informative for investors and non-family stakeholders interested in understanding under which conditions family-related factors influence the quality of internal auditing functions.

This study offers fresh evidence regarding the relationship between family-related factors and the quality of internal auditing and board sub-committees that moderate such a relationship in family businesses.

This study aims to theoretically investigate the effect of activating corporate governance (CG) mechanisms on the association between adopting corporate social responsibility (CSR) and tax avoidance (TA). Based on the analyzing of the previous studies, the authors support the results of studies that found a positive effect for activating CG on the adoption of CSR. Also, they found that there is a negative impact of activating CG mechanisms on TA, as CG includes controls and procedures that contribute to limiting opportunistic behaviors of management and ensures making decisions that maximize value for shareholders. To the best of the authors' knowledge, it is the only chapter that examines the effect of activating CG mechanisms on the association between CSR and TA.

This study aims to investigate whether socially responsible businesses with corporate social expenditure are less prone to engaging in tax avoidance. The study also examines whether political connections moderate the association between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and tax avoidance.

The study uses ordinary least squares to analyse the panel data of all 30 listed banks on the Dhaka Stock Exchange covering 2012 to 2020. The study uses a set of alternative variables to check the robustness of the findings.

Confirming the corporate culture theory, the study findings indicate that the higher the firms’ CSR expenditure, the lower the tax avoidance. Contrarily, the moderating effect of political connection weakens the role of CSR in tax avoidance, implying that political relation makes the firms socially irresponsible. Besides, the findings document that firms with strong political connections are more likely to be tax aggressive by weakening the role of CSR. The findings imply that firms with weaker political connections are more socially responsible than firms with strong political ties.

The study provides the bank management and regulatory bodies valuable insights to take necessary actions so that they can easily monitor whether the banks follow their instructions regarding CSR and tax payments. As the politicians make the firm socially irresponsible, the regulatory bodies and bank management should not keep them or their relatives on the board.

The study contributes to the CSR and tax avoidance literature considering the moderating role of political connections in Bangladesh banking sector.

The purpose of this article is to make a contribution to the existing knowledge by using the unique cross-jurisdiction data drawn from the FCA’s REP-CRIM submissions to explore dynamics behind firms’ perceptions on financial crime. Capturing firm’s sentiment is notoriously challenging, and any relevant regulatory data is usually not available in the public domain. A recent exception is the UK Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA’s) financial crime data return (REP-CRIM) submissions which include the cross-country regulatory data on the UK financial institutions’ perceptions of jurisdiction risk. Despite a broad literature with respect to financial crime, there exists an important gap in the existing knowledge with respect to factors that are associated with the perceptions of firms with respect to jurisdiction risk, which this article aims to close.

Using cross-country regulatory data on the UK financial institutions’ perceptions of jurisdiction risk, this study empirically determines that perceptions of jurisdiction risk is significantly and positively associated with anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) framework, as well as with tax burden on business and institutional and legal risk in the case of 165 jurisdictions.

The findings lend support to the proposition that unsystematic efforts and too much publicity may ascertain the high-risk image of a jurisdiction, deterring cross-border business. Policy implications that emerge from the study also add to the case for strengthening institutional and legal frameworks, as well as relieving the tax burden on doing business.

Findings of the present study should be interpreted with caution, as the dependent variable used in the present study reflects UK firms’ perceptions of jurisdiction risk, which may depend on various factors such as different risk appetites and the countries in which firms carry out business, and not necessarily the actual level of risks based on financial crime statistics. For example, a jurisdiction which may indeed be considered high risk, would not necessarily be ranking high on the FCA’s list of UK firms’ jurisdiction risk perceptions due to few firms operating in that particular country. As a result, the list could differ from the Financial Action Task Force’s black and grey lists. Findings based on the regulatory data on the UK financial institutions’ perceptions of jurisdiction risk should be considered preliminary in nature, given that they are based on a single year cross sectional data. As global and country-level AML/CFT efforts continue to intensify and as more regulatory data becomes publicly available, it would be imperative to bring further empirical evidence to bear on the question of whether financial crime perceptions are likely to be more pronounced for jurisdictions where AML/CFT efforts are more intensified. Likewise, from a policy standpoint, it would be equally important to explore further the role that institutional and legal risk, as well as tax burden on businesses, play in shaping firms’ perceptions of jurisdiction risk.

Findings lend support to the proposition that unsystematic efforts and too much publicity may ascertain the high-risk image of a jurisdiction, deterring cross-border business. Therefore, rather than waiting for more data to be made available by other financial regulators, which could lead to a more conclusive evidence in the future, on balance, the findings of this study add to the case for carefully designing and systematically implementing AML/CFT measures in a less publicized manner. Findings lend support to the theoretical postulation that disorderly efforts and undue publicity regarding AML/CFT efforts serve to ascertain the high-risk image of a jurisdiction, which could deter cross-border business and could be detrimental to how firms undertake due diligence. They also suggest that disorderly implementation of AML/CFT measures may hinder access to formal financial service and jeopardize authorities’ ability to trace the movement of funds, which may also add to negative perceptions of jurisdiction risk.

Findings are in line with the theoretical expectations that perceptions of jurisdiction risk would be expected to be higher in countries with inadequate disclosure rules, lax regulation and opacity jurisdiction. Likewise, results are aligned with the expectations that tax burden on business would be expected to be in a positive relationship with jurisdiction risk, as it would increase the likelihood of tax evasion, which incentivizes financial crime. Therefore, policy implications that emerge from the study also add to the case for strengthening institutional and legal frameworks and relieving the tax burden on doing business as part of efforts to improve the international image of jurisdictions with respect to financial crime risks.

Using the cross-country regulatory data on the UK financial institutions’ perceptions of jurisdiction risk, this study has empirically determined that perceptions of jurisdiction risk is significantly and positively associated with AML/CFT framework, as well as with tax burden on business and institutional and legal risk. These findings have implications from a policy standpoint.

The current study aims to analyze the role of International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) in sustainability issues and its impact on the attitude of practitioners (auditors) in industrial companies. The current study relies on the analytical method, one of the tools of the inductive approach, by examining the literature of researchers, international and local organizations, publications, series, alerts, and topics dealt with by the IFAC, as well as reviewing studies, theoretical and applied research, periodicals, books, and statistics. And specialized publications for this subject, which is related to other sciences – such as – environmental science, economic, and political sciences. The study reached many results, the most important of which are: (1) The first half of the current decade has seen high interest from the IFAC, has led to the issuance of International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) international standard on assurance engagements 3410, (GHG) Statements. (2) Sustainability has become important to a growing number of enterprises, and may have a significant influence, in certain cases, the financial statements, also became the sustainability of the topics under increasing attention from users of financial statements. Thus, the financial statements will need a practitioner to take into consideration sustainability issues and a private greenhouse gas when auditing the financial statements. This study is distinguished by analyzing the role of the IFAC and the IAASB for the period from 1998 to 2023 regarding sustainability issues.

This study aims to investigate the association between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and tax avoidance, as well as the effect of earnings performance on this link. We suggest a negative association between CSR and tax avoidance based on the Stakeholder Theory. We also suggest that earnings performance moderates this relationship. Based on a sample of 25 Tunisian firms during the years 2012–2017, data were gathered via annual reports of the companies, and a survey-questionnaire was used to gather CSR information. The research design uses ordinary least squares (OLS) regression to investigate the association between CSR and tax. In addition, the analysis is performed using panel data to account for heterogeneity at the individual level and over time. Using this research design, the study provides a comprehensive examination of the effect of CSR on tax avoidance among Tunisian companies over a 6-year period. According to our findings, companies that participate in CSR initiatives show less tax avoidance than those that do not. Moreover, in line with the Slack Resource Theory, for businesses with higher earnings, the negative link between CSR and tax avoidance is stronger. Our research demonstrates that businesses may utilize CSR to improve their standing in the community and lower the likelihood of tax avoidance. These results suggest that profitable firms may have more funds available to spend on CSR initiatives and, as a result, are more motivated to maintain a positive reputation by refraining from tax avoidance strategies.

To complete this case, students will need to access financial statements from the Securities and Exchange Commission’s webpage. The links are provided. Students will also need to review the conceptual framework that is typically covered in Intermediate 1 to respond to question 5.

This case is based on the three financial statement restatements that Weatherford International Ltd. made over an approximately 18-month period. The restatements were due to a fraud committed by manipulating the income tax accrual in the financial statements. The manipulation used was to overstate the amount of income used to calculate the dividend exclusion and then use a relatively high tax rate to calculate the resulting tax benefit. The tax rate used for the fraud was substantially more than Weatherford’s effective tax rate (ETR), which was a prominent part of the company’s strategic growth plan. The tax senior with the external auditors who reviewed the entry made for the dividend exclusion captured the inconsistency with the comment that “This [the entry] deserves a huh?” The case is intended for students in Intermediate 2, where financial statement restatements and their effect on the company’s financial statements are typically covered. During the years covered in this case, Weatherford was also under investigation for violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). Weatherford’s FCPA violations included multiple instances of bribery, the inappropriate use of volume discounts, improper payments and kickbacks in the United Nation’s Oil for Food program. Weatherford received the eighth-largest fine in the history of FCPA violations (at that time) of $152m. Weatherford’s FCPA investigation expanded, and the company paid another $100m in fines for violations of sanctions law and export control law. This case focuses only on the fraudulent manipulation of the financial statements through the tax accrual and does not delve into the other investigations. However, the linkage between those investigations and the fraud in this case is Weatherford’s nonexistent internal controls.

This case was designed to be used in Intermediate 2 financial accounting classes to highlight financial statement restatements and review the conceptual framework and materiality. The students who used the case did not have difficulty with the tax aspect of the case. However, most of the students had taken one tax class previously or concurrently. If students have not had any exposure to tax, the instructor might want to walk students through the tax aspects of the case.

Climate change is one of our time’s most pressing global environmental challenges, and environmental innovation is critical to addressing it. This study aims to investigate the relationship between environmental innovation and carbon emission in the healthcare industry in Europe while also examining the moderating role of environmental governance.

Data for this study were collected from publicly listed healthcare companies in ten European countries spanning the years 2012–2021. The selected countries encompassed Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The research encompassed all healthcare companies for which data were accessible, resulting in a comprehensive dataset comprising 1,210 companies. The authors collected data from multiple sources, including annual reports, the World Bank and Eikon databases, to ensure a robust and extensive dataset.

The results of this study indicate that environmental governance plays a significant moderating role in the relationship between environmental innovation and carbon emission within the healthcare sector in Europe, but when combined with high levels of environmental innovation, strong environmental governance leads to enhanced efforts to reduce carbon emissions. This combination also contributes to meeting the expectations of a broader range of stakeholders and maintaining legitimacy.

The study’s findings have practical implications for healthcare regulators, policymakers and various stakeholders. It underscores the importance of integrating solid environmental governance and innovation to address climate change challenges in the healthcare sector effectively. This integrated approach not only helps reduce carbon emissions but also contributes to achieving sustainable outcomes while satisfying a wider range of stakeholders.

This study adds to the existing body of knowledge by highlighting the significant role of environmental governance as a moderator in the relationship between environmental innovation and carbon emission in the healthcare industry. The research findings provide valuable insights for academics, practitioners and decision-makers, emphasizing the need to combine governance and innovation for sustainable outcomes in healthcare sectors.