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The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether companies that donate to winning electoral campaigns are more aggressive in terms of tax planning than companies that do not make these contributions. The relationship between politicians and companies may be signaled by political connections in which companies try to get political benefits in exchange for providing politicians with campaign financing. The hypothesis is that a quid pro quo occurs in which these companies benefit from favorable tax treatment that reduces their relative tax burden.

The focus of this study is donations that were made in the presidential elections of 2010 and 2014. The sample covers the period between 2010 and 2016 for companies listed on the B3 Stock Exchange, using proxies for tax aggressiveness computed based on value-added reporting. Through linear regressions, the authors have tested whether the companies that made these campaign contributions tend to have a lower tax burden.

The proposed hypothesis was confirmed, revealing that a political connection between campaign donations reduces the tax burden for donating companies during the years following the election. These donations appear to depict an environment characterized by an exchange of favors in which the donating companies exhibit greater tax aggressiveness than non-donating companies.

The current study deals with a subject that has not yet been examined empirically in Brazil and reinforces the position adopted by the Supreme Court in prohibiting campaign donations to inhibit quid pro quo practices. The study offers additional arguments for the criminalization of the so-called “second set of books” used to record electoral campaign contributions.

The aim of this paper is to examine how managerial ability affects corporate tax aggressiveness.

The study follows the work of Demerjian, Lev, and McVay (2012) and quantifies managerial ability by calculating how efficiently managers generate revenues from given economic resources using the data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach. The study uses a wide range of measures of tax aggressiveness. Firm fixed-effects regressions and a difference-in-differences approach using information regarding CEO turnover to control for endogeneity are used.

The study finds a negative relationship between managerial ability and corporate tax aggressiveness. Further tests show that this negative relationship is more pronounced for firms with higher investment opportunities or firms with more reputational concerns.

Given the significant costs associated with tax aggressiveness and the negative effect it can have on managerial reputation if discovered, the results suggest that more able managers invest less effort in aggressive tax avoidance activities. This study furthers the understanding of how managerial personal traits affect corporate decision-making.

This paper examines whether financial distress is associated with tax avoidance and whether the COVID-19 pandemic moderates such association.

The sample covers 38,958 firm-year observations from 32 countries during the period 2015–2020. Financial distress is measured using the ZSCORE by Altman (1968), while tax avoidance is based on the book-tax difference.

Financially distressed firms exhibit low tax avoidance pre- and during the pandemic periods. The authors find higher tax avoidance during the pandemic compared to the pre-pandemic period, but the pandemic enhances the negative relationship between financial distress and tax avoidance.

The study offers evidence on how financial distress drives firms to engage in more tax avoidance when firms globally encountered various levels of financial difficulty sparked by the economic challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The findings provide insights to policymakers on the need to monitor and incentivise financially distressed firms, especially during economic challenges due to pandemic.

This study adds to the limited, albeit important, evidence on the joint effect of the COVID-19 pandemic and financial distress on tax avoidance.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between auditor characteristics and the level of tax avoidance in an emerging market.

In this regard, the effect of various factors such as auditor tenure, auditor industry specialization, audit reports and audit fees on tax avoidance was examined. The study sample includes listed companies in the Tehran Stock Exchange. The time period of study is six years from 2011 to 2016. Also in this study, firm size, leverage, firm age and auditor size were controlled.

The results of this research were determined in four hypotheses. First and second hypotheses that explore the relationship between auditor tenure and auditor industry specialization with tax avoidance were not confirmed. But the results showed a significant relationship between the type of audit opinions and audit fees with tax avoidance.

The current study investigates the auditor characteristics on tax avoidance in a developing nation of Iran and the results may helpful the developing countries.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the influence of the informational environment on the relevance of accounting information in companies traded in stock exchanges of emerging markets.

For this purpose, the authors calculated indicators based on figures derived from the financial statements and variables that sought to capture the influence of the economic and institutional environment. The sample consisted of publicly traded companies from 20 countries classified as emerging by Standard & Poors. Macroeconomic information was obtained through the International Country Risk Guide database. The analysis period ranged from 2004 to 2013, excluding missing data, variables considered as outliers, besides the exclusion of data from companies that presented negative equity.

It was observed that the financial variables presented signs consistent with the literature, except for the price-to-book variable and the asset change variable. The inclusion of variables related to the accounting informational environment offered evidence that the more opaque the accounting environment in the country, the lesser the ability of the profits to portray the variations of stock returns. The variable that captured the adoption of international standards was consistent with expectations, i.e. the adoption of international standards would increase the quality of accounting information, showing a positive signal. Moreover, the variable aggressiveness of the earnings was statistically significant and negative, consistent with the literature.

The variables earnings smoothing and aversion to losses did not show the expected behaviour though, highlighting the possible limitations of these proxies used to capture the opacity of the earnings.

When institutional moderators were included, it was observed that the adoption of the IFRS standards positively affected the relationship, which is more relevant when the accounting figures were under its aegis. Recently, countless nations’ transition to international accounting standards has been justified by the need to use high-quality reporting standards. The research sought to contribute to strengthen this dimension, presenting evidence that the dummy variable included to capture the adoption of international standards had a positive effect on the relationship.

An intractable effect of revenue and expense recognition based on tax regulation and accounting rules is unresolved and may be manageable only by reducing the value of deferred taxes. Therefore, in this study, the authors examined the relationship between the International Accounting Standard 12 (IAS 12) and deferred income taxes associated with tax and accounting rules.

The authors used a large sample of balanced data from 144 firms across 1992–2019. To mitigate the problem of superfluous results, the authors used the same number of firms and years for pre- and post-IAS 12 periods. The authors employed robust econometric estimations to establish the impact of IAS 12 on deferred tax.

The regression results show that deferred tax assets decreased significantly, whereas deferred tax liabilities increased significantly, in the post-IAS 12 period. These contrasting results imply that IAS 12 implementation has increased conservatism and prudence in financial reporting. However, the authors find that the increase in deferred tax assets post-IAS 12 is value destructive, suggesting that its implementation has unintended consequences. The results are robust to alternative measurements and econometric identification strategies.

While prior studies have explored topics such as deferred tax measurement and the impact of income and expense recognition, the authors specifically analyzed how IAS 12 affects deferred taxes and their effect on the market valuation. The authors find that certain accounting standards may not be relevant to the capital market.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of financial derivatives usage and country’s tax environment characteristics on the relationship between financial derivatives and tax avoidance.

This study uses a cross-country analysis with the scope of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries which consists of the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore.

The level of financial derivatives usage positively affects the level of tax avoidance. This finding indicates that financial derivatives can be used as tax avoidance tool. Furthermore, the positive effect of the level of financial derivatives usage on the level of tax avoidance is lower in countries with a competitive tax environment than in countries with an uncompetitive tax environment. This finding indicates that in country with a competitive tax environment, the use of financial derivatives as a tax avoidance tool can be replaced by the tax facilities provided by that country.

This study uses four countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations region and does not test the sample based on the financial derivative types.

Tax authorities need to establish a clear tax regulation in regard to the tax treatment of financial derivatives transactions, e.g. define the definition of financial derivatives for hedging purposes and financial derivatives for speculative purposes; and define specific criteria to separate financial derivatives for hedging purposes from financial derivatives for speculative purposes. It is necessary to determine whether losses arising from derivative transactions are classified as deductible expenses or non-deductible expenses.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is also the first that provide empirical evidence that the relationship between financial derivatives and tax avoidance activities depends on a country’s tax environment.