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Some researchers regard discretionary accrual (DA) as one of the factors that drive corporate managers to conduct tax planning (Scott, 2009; Basri and Buchari, 2017). Based on agency theory and positive accounting theory, corporate managers can transform accounting information and manipulate firm earnings to reduce tax liability. There is a lot of research concerning earnings management and tax planning in the developed economy. These studies include Wang and Chen (2012) and Pettersson and Wu (2015). In the emerging economies, it includes Jamei and Khedri (2016), Kurniasih and Sulardi Suranta (2017), Prastiwi (2017), Almashaqbeh et al. (2018), Bayunanda et al. (2018), Rani et al. (2018) and Kałdoński and Jewartowski (2019). It is important to note that none of the research mentioned above has evaluated the impact of real earnings management (REM) on tax planning in Nigeria. While in the developed economy only Kałdoński and Jewartowski (2019) used REM as an explanatory variable, while the majority of studies used DA. Consequently, no study has used REM to moderate the relationship between financial attributes and tax planning. Despite the widespread notion, as well as positive accounting theory, tax planning theory that financial attributes (profitability, leverage, liquidity and firm growth), REM and DA motivate tax planning, previous investigations have produced mixed results (Dwenger and Steiner, 2009; Wang and Chen, 2012; Chen and Zolotoy, 2014; Aghouei and Moradi, 2015; Pettersson and Wu, 2015; Ribeiro, 2015; Chen et al., 2016; Jamei and Khedri, 2016; Ogbeide, 2017; Yuniawati et al., 2017; Chen and Lin, 2017; Firmansyah and Febriyanto, 2018; Prastiwi, 2018; Rani et al., 2018; Kibiya and Aminu, 2019; Kałdoński and Jewartowski, 2019 and Siyanbonla, 2021). This study aims to use REM as a moderator to examine the relationship between financial attributes and tax planning whether it will strengthen or weaken the relationship.

The study examines the impact of financial attributes on the corporate tax planning of listed manufacturing firms in Nigeria. It also tests for the moderating effect of REM on the relationship between financial attributes and tax planning. Data for the study was sourced from the annual reports of sampled manufacturing firms. The study used the panel data methodology for analysis. The study used fixed effect estimation to interpret the parsimonious model and random effect was used to interpret the moderated model. The study documented that financial leverage has a positive significant influence on the tax planning of the sampled manufacturing firms. While firm growth has a negative significant impact on the tax planning of listed manufacturing firms in Nigeria. REM has a positive significant impact on tax planning. Also, REM moderate significantly the relationship between financial attributes on one hand and tax planning on the other. The study recommends that firms should go for more debt to take advantage of the tax shield of interest on the debt. Also, firm management should use non-current debt to finance non-current assets and use current debt to finance current assets to avoid the risk of taking over or liquidation. The study also recommends that firm management should engage in intercompany and intracompany transactions by selling their goods to affiliates in countries with low prices and low tax rates. A firm should also overproduce goods to have high production costs and high closing inventory since real earning management significantly reduces tax liabilities by deferring income into a later year.

The study documented that financial leverage has a positive and significant influence on the tax planning of the sampled manufacturing firms. While firm growth has a negative but significant impact on the tax planning of listed manufacturing firms in Nigeria. REM has a positive and significant impact on tax planning. Also, REM moderate significantly the relationship between financial attributes on one hand and tax planning on the other.

There is a lot of research concerning earnings management and tax planning in the developed economy. These studies include Wang and Chen (2012) and Pettersson and Wu (2015). In the emerging economies, it includes Jamei and Khedri (2016), Kurniasih and Sulardi Suranta (2017), Prastiwi (2017), Almashaqbeh et al. (2018), Bayunanda et al. (2018), Rani et al. (2018) and Kałdoński and Jewartowski (2019). It is important to note that none of the research mentioned above has evaluated the impact of REM on tax planning in Nigeria. While in the developed economy only Kałdoński and Jewartowski (2019) used REM as an explanatory variable, while the majority of studies used DA. Consequently, no study has used REM to moderate the relationship between financial attributes and tax planning.

For many global firms and corporate oligopolies, transfer pricing is essential. The transfer pricing literature as it is currently written is succinctly summarized in this study. The authors offer a thorough analysis of transfer pricing research in this study. This review sheds light on the top researchers, approaches, conclusions, theoretical and empirical gaps, and upcoming issues of transfer pricing research over the previous nine years through a methodical analysis of 29 research publications from the Scopus database (2014–2022). To help graduate students pursue further degrees in this area, such as a master's, thesis or PhD, this study will highlight five research issues.

This essay looks at five significant areas of tax avoidance and transfer pricing research. Some of these issues include determining the impact of transfer pricing regulations on various types of multinational corporations, assessing the effectiveness of transfer pricing regulations in preventing tax evasion, examining various policy options and determining the impact of transfer pricing on other economic outcomes using a systematic literature review.

The findings of this review demonstrate the need for transfer pricing research to look more closely at transfer pricing as a tool for business in addition to compliance and tax management.

This analysis concludes with future directions for transfer pricing research.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate public disclosures and accountability for government decision-making in the case of a major prison project delivered through a Public–Private Partnership (PPP) in the State of Victoria (Australia).

The study explores a unique case to provide insights into public disclosures for PPPs in a jurisdiction that is a recognised leader in PPP policy and practice. The analysis is theoretically framed by an understanding of neoliberalism and New Public Management, and draws on data from case-specific reporting, media reporting and public policy, to examine interconnections between accounting, public discourse and accountability.

The analysis shows how publicly available information relating to key government decisions routinely lacked supporting evidence or explanation, even though areas of subjectivity were recognised in public policy. Accounting was deployed numerically and discursively to present potentially contestable decisions as being based on common-sense “facts”. The implied “truth” status of government reporting is problematised by media disclosure of key issues absent from government disclosures.

Under neoliberalism, accountingisation can help depoliticise the public sphere and limit discourse by constructing ostensible “facts” in an inherently contestable arena. By contrast, democratic accountability requires public disclosures that infuse a critical dialogical public sphere.

The paper shows how neoliberalism can be embedded in public policies and institutional practices, and buttressed by the use of accounting. The analysis illuminates the persistence and “failing forward” character of neoliberalism, whereby crises are addressed through further neoliberalisation.

The study seeks to find the effect of financial leverage on the firm performance of non-financial companies listed in the Tokyo stock market.

The study collected data from 263 companies in the automobile and industrial producer sectors listed on the Tokyo stock exchange between 2001 and 2021. The generalized method of moments was used to estimate the effect of leverage on financial performance due to its ability to overcome the problems of endogeneity and autocorrelation.

The study found that the equity multiplier has a positive and statistically significant effect on return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE) and earning per share (EPS). The study discovered that the interest coverage ratio has a positive and statistically significant effect on ROA, ROE, EPS and Tobin’s Q. The results revealed that the degree of financial leverage and debt to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) have a negative and statistically significant effect on ROE, EPS and Tobin’s Q. The study also found that the capitalization ratios of the firms have a negative and statistically significant effect on ROA, ROE, EPS and Tobin’s Q.

The use of debt financing, which presents financial leverage, indicates that the companies can make enough earnings to pay off the interest and principal (debt service obligations), which were shown by the interest coverage ratio, as well as to pay all the long-term fixed expenses, which were shown by the fixed charge coverage ratio. Interest and fixed charge coverage have a positive statistically significant effect on the financial performance of automobile and industrial producer companies.

The study focused on the effect of financial leverage on financial performance by relying on pecking and trade-off theories to contribute to the existing body of literature in finance.

This study aims to examine the impact of founder or descendant chief executive officers (CEOs) on the relationship between tax avoidance and firms' future risk. This issue is important because of an ongoing debate about founder and descendant CEOs' impacts, contributions and implications for firms.

This study uses a sample of publicly listed nonfinancial Indonesian firms in 2012–2019, most of which are family firms and adhere to a two-tier governance system that was understudied in previous studies. The authors use panel-random effect data regression for the statistical analysis.

The results demonstrate that founder or descendant CEOs do not affect the positive relationship between tax avoidance and firms' future risks.

This research supports the upper-echelon theory, arguing that top management teams affect firms' strategic policies and outcomes.

CEOs play weaker roles in countries with a two-tier governance system than in a one-tier one. Additionally, in relation to Hofstede's cultural dimensions, Indonesia has collective and feminist characteristics that emphasize elements of togetherness and group so that firms reflect the firms' top management teams and not only CEOs.

This research fills a research gap on the role of founder and descendant CEOs in the relationship between tax avoidance and firms' future risks by analyzing firms in Indonesia, a country with a two-tier governance system and collective and feminine cultural characteristics.

An increasing number of Danish municipalities wish to minimize tax avoidance due to profit shifting in their public procurement. To facilitate this effort, this study aims to develop a firm-level indicator to assess the potential risk of profit shifting (PS-risk) from Danish subsidiaries of multinational corporations to subsidiaries in low-tax jurisdictions.

Drawing from previous research, PS-risk is assumed to depend on the maximum difference in the effective corporate tax rate between the Danish subsidiary and other subsidiaries under the global ultimate owner, in conjunction with the tax regulations relevant to profit shifting. The top 400 contractors in Danish municipalities from 2017 to 2019 are identified and their relative PS-risk is estimated by combining information about corporate ownership structure with country-specific information on corporate tax rates, tax regulations and profit shifting from three independent data sets.

The PS-risk estimates are highly significantly positively correlated across the data sets and show that 17%–23% of the total procurement sum of the Danish municipalities has been spent on contracts with corporations having a medium to high PS-risk. On average, PS-risk is highest for large non-Scandinavian multinational contractors in sectors such as construction, health and information processing.

Danish public procurers may use the indicator to screen potential suppliers and, if procurement regulations permit, to ensure high-PS-risk bidders document their tax practices.

The PS-risk indicator is novel, and to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the analysis provides the first estimate of PS-risk in Danish public procurement.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The increased interest among academicians to explore more about tax management behavior is evident in the literature on corporate tax avoidance. This paper aims to illustrate the multiple aspects that influence the tax avoidance behavior of corporations and its impacts through the systematic review method.

This study used “Tax Avoidance” OR “Tax Aggressiveness” OR “Tax Planning” as search strings to extract the relevant literature from the Scopus database. This study is a comprehensive analysis of existing literature on corporate tax avoidance behavior. Further, the keyword network analysis has been used to find out the most explored and dry research areas related to corporate tax avoidance behavior using VOSviewer software.

The study finds that taxation decision is an important managerial decision. Managers adopt tax avoidance tactics to boost postax profits to meet the shareholders’ expectations, particularly of risk-averse shareholders, and sometimes for their benefit also. With this, this study also finds that firms’ characteristics, political connections and corporate social responsibility activities also impact taxation decisions. In addition, the study identifies that tax-avoiding behavior has a contradictory impact on firm value, market growth and corporate transparency disclosure decisions.

The study assists the researchers by providing a brief overview of tax avoidance behavior, for corporates in understanding the implications of tax avoidance, and for policymakers to fix the taxation loopholes and bring necessary tax reforms.

This study adds to the existing literature by providing a thorough overview of theories, determinants and outcomes of corporate tax avoidance behavior.

We develop a conceptual framework as a basis for thinking about the impact of extractive industries and emancipatory potential of alternative accounts. We then review selected alternative accounts literature on some contemporary issues surrounding the extractive industries and identify opportunities for accounting, auditing, and accountability research. We also provide an overview of the other contributions in this special issue.

Drawing on alternative accounts from the popular and social media as well as the alternative accounting literature, this primarily discursive paper provides a contemporary literature review of identified issues within the extractive industries highlighting potential areas for future research. The eight papers that make up the special issue are located within a conceptual framework is employed to illustrate each paper’s contribution to the field.

While accounting has a rich literature covering some of the issues detailed in this paper, this has not necessarily translated to the extractive industries. Few studies in accounting have got “down and dirty” so to speak and engaged directly with those impacted by companies operating in the extractive industries. Those that have, have focused on specific areas such as the Niger Delta. Although prior studies in the social governance literature have tended to focus on disclosure issues, it is questionable whether this work, while informative, has resulted in any meaningful environmental, social or governance (ESG) changes on the part of the extractive industries.

The extensive extractive industries literature both from within and outside the accounting discipline makes a comprehensive review impractical. Drawing on both the accounting literature and other disciplines, this paper identifies areas that warrant further investigation through alternative accounts.

This paper and other contributions to this special issue provide a basis and an agenda for accounting scholars seeking to undertake interdisciplinary research into the extractive industries.

This research aims to examine the association between political connection and tax aggressiveness during the COVID-19 pandemic and the role of business ethics in the association between political connection and tax aggressiveness.

This study employs a multiple regression method for 147 manufacturing firms listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange during the pandemic era.

Political connection has no association with tax aggressiveness. However, political connection has a negative (positive) association with tax aggressiveness in more (less) ethical firms. The results are robust after controlling for year-fixed effects, endogeneity issues and other tax aggressiveness measurements.

Political connection is often cited as the driver of unethical business, including tax aggressiveness. However, this paper claims and finds that political connection is a double-edged sword. Ethical firms use political connection to reduce their tax aggressiveness, and vice versa. Previous research has paid little attention to this topic. This paper also uses COVID-19 as a natural experiment to highlight the importance of corporate social responsibility activities as business ethics.