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This study examines how creditor interventions after debt covenant violations affect corporate tax avoidance. Using a regression discontinuity design, we find that creditor interventions increase borrowers' tax avoidance. This effect is concentrated among firms with weaker shareholder governance before creditor interventions and among those with less bargaining power during subsequent debt renegotiations. Our results indicate that creditors play an active role in shaping corporate tax policy outside of bankruptcy.

This chapter examines the ethics and business diplomacy of legal tax avoidance by multinational enterprises (MNEs).

The methodology assembles the relevant literature and examines alternative interpretations of corporate tax strategy. Key topics include business ethics and responsibility, business sustainability, economic patriotism and corporate inversions, tax havens, and possible solutions.

The debate concerns whether legal tax avoidance is unethical and/or poor business diplomacy. There are three possible strategies for MNEs. One strategy is intentional tax avoidance. Another strategy is business–government negotiation concerning tax liability. Another strategy is business diplomacy aimed at maximizing the social legitimacy of the firm across multiple national tax jurisdictions.

The chapter assesses four possible solutions for corporate tax avoidance. One solution is voluntary tax payments beyond legal obligations whether out of a sense of ethics or a strategy of business diplomacy. A second solution is international tax cooperation and tax harmonization in ways that minimize opportunities for tax avoidance. A third solution is increased stakeholder pressure emphasizing business diplomacy and tax cooperation and harmonization. The fourth solution is negotiated tax liabilities between each business and each jurisdiction.

The chapter provides an original systematic survey of the key aspects of corporate international tax avoidance in an approach in which business ethics and business diplomacy are better integrated. The value of the chapter is that it provides information and assembles relevant literature concerning corporate international tax avoidance, and addresses possible solutions for this problem.

This paper takes a unique approach to provide additional insight into the agency view of tax avoidance. We directly investigate the association between the presence of agency conflicts and corporate tax avoidance. Using a measure of CEO centrality, developed by Bebchuk, Cremers, and Peyer (2011), we identify settings in which agency conflicts are likely to be high. In contrast to prior literature, our primary tests do not rely on the inferences of market participants regarding tax avoidance. We find that CEO centrality is positively and significantly associated with tax avoidance. Additionally, we analyze the mediating role of monitoring by institutional investors in our setting. We find that the relation between tax avoidance and the existence of agency conflicts is strongest for firms with low levels of CEO monitoring. We also add to prior literature by investigating the implications of our setting on future accounting performance and future firm value.

The purpose of this study is to examine the moderating effect of sustainability reporting on the relationship between tax avoidance and firm value. This study also examines the moderating effect of sustainability reporting in both environmentally sensitive firms and non-environmentally sensitive firms.

This research uses moderated panel regression with 596 observations and 734 observations for cash effective tax rate (ETR) and generally accepted accounting principles effective tax rate (GAAP ETR) of firms listed on the Indonesian Stock Exchange between 2014 and 2016. Tax avoidance is measured by both cash ETR and GAAP ETR.

This paper shows that sustainability reporting moderates the relationship between tax avoidance (GAAP ETR) and firm value. The results show that GAAP ETR has a negative association with firm value in non-environmentally sensitive firms and a positive association with firm value in environmentally sensitive firms. Consequently, the sustainability report alters only the effect of GAAP ETR on firm value in non-environmentally sensitive firms. The results imply that, unlike environmentally sensitive firms, non-environmentally sensitive firms need sustainability reporting to reduce the reputational costs of tax avoidance.

How shareholders view tax avoidance remains unclear; research on this topic often fails to produce a uniform result. The present research fills this gap by using the existence of sustainability reporting as proof of companies’ ethical motivations to moderate the association of tax avoidance and firm value, which has not been discussed in previous research.

This study aims to investigate the effect of financial-tax reporting conformity jurisdictions on the association between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and aggressive tax avoidance.

Using a sample comprising firms domiciled in Europe for the period 2008–2016, this study uses regression analysis to test the impact of financial-tax reporting conformity jurisdictions on the association between CSR and aggressive tax avoidance.

The empirical results show that there is a positive association between CSR and tax avoidance, and firms headquartered in low financial-tax reporting conformity jurisdictions are more likely to engage in CSR to hedge against the potential negative consequences of aggressive tax-avoidance practices as compared to firms domiciled in countries with high level of financial-tax reporting conformity.

This study confirms Sikka’s (2010, 2013) view of “organised hypocrisy” act committed by firms to cover their socially irresponsible activities of aggressive tax avoidance by engaging in CSR. Results have implication for various regulatory bodies and investors in that the type of financial-tax conformity does impact the link between CSR and tax avoidance, and based on that, CSR firms may engage in CSR to overcome any negative reactions that could be caused as a result of tax avoidance.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is the first to investigate the impact of financial-tax reporting conformity jurisdictions on the association between CSR and aggressive tax avoidance. This study also contributes to the literature in that, it uses an alternative data set which offers a more objective assessment of CSR measure and covers multiple countries.

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 explore the evidence of the probability of firms’ tax avoidance and the downward convergence trend of national statutory tax rates and firms’ effective tax rates.

This research employs exploratory data analysis using interactive data manipulation and visualization tools, namely, R with SparkR, dplyr, ggplot2 and googleVis (GeoChart and Motion Chart) packages. This analysis is based on the world-scale accounting data of all listed firms from 148 countries spanning 30 years.

The results reveal the following: three types of evidences on probability of firms’ tax avoidance, showing a non-random distribution of firms’ effective tax rates and return on assets, cross-sectional variation of firms’ effective tax rates in each country, and the trend of difference between effective tax rates and statutory tax rates, and the downward convergence trend of statutory tax rates and firms’ effective tax rates.

The results highlight the prominent issues of world-scale tax avoidance and tax rate competition and facilitate a collaborative discussion between laymen and professionals using objective evidence.

A novel methodology is adopted through the visualization of world-scale accounting data, which can facilitate a new perspective, revealing unexpected patterns and trends in otherwise hidden information. This study also highlights the importance of global consideration of firms’ tax avoidance and tax rate competition, using objective evidence.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of country-level governance and accounting standards on corporate tax avoidance.

This paper is an empirical work using a sample of listed companies from 36 countries.

This paper finds that firms resident in countries with stronger country-level governance engage in less tax avoidance. Aspects of stronger country-level governance include higher government effectiveness and regulatory quality, and stronger enforcement of law and control of corruption. This paper also finds that firms adopting international accounting standards (IFRS) engage in less tax avoidance than those using local accounting standards. Further examination of the effect of interactions between country-level governance and the adoption of IFRS on tax avoidance finds that there is a substitute relationship between country-level governance and the adoption of IFRS.

This study has significant implications for policy makers, corporate management and academics. It documents that when a country implements governance targeting improving government effectiveness, enhancing regulatory quality, strengthening enforcement of laws and controlling corruption, this will lead to less corporate tax avoidance. It also shows that the adoption of IFRS will reduce corporate tax avoidance, probably by enhancing accounting quality and disclosure, and that the adoption of IFRS provides a bond mechanism in reducing tax avoidance in countries with weak governance.

This paper is the first study to examine the impact of country-level governance on tax avoidance at the corporate level. It is also the first study to examine how country-level governance interplays with IFRS in shaping firms’ tax avoidance activities.

This paper aims to examine the relationship between pyramid ownership structure and tax avoidance.

This paper is an empirical work using a sample of Canadian listed firms.

Relying on several proxies for tax avoidance, the authors find that firms affiliated with pyramidal structures generally engage in more tax avoidance activities than non-affiliated firms; firms affiliated with more complex pyramids engage in more tax avoidance practices and firms located at the lower tiers of the pyramids avoid more taxes; and some pyramid-affiliated firms with larger deviation between controlling shareholders’ cash flow rights and control rights engage in more tax avoidance practices.

A broader understanding of the relationship between pyramidal structure and tax avoidance can be pursued by including firms in other countries, where the pyramid groups (pyramid structure) are prevalent, but institutional environments differ from that of Canada.

This study highlights the importance of pyramid ownership in shaping tax avoidance activities among Canadian-listed firms. Canada provides an ideal setting for studying the impact of ownership structure, as it contains a diverse corporate ownership structure ranging from widely held freestanding firms to pyramidal business groups.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the association between political connections and tax avoidance in Islamic banking industry and to test whether joint audit affects this relationship.

Tax avoidance is measured using effective tax rate while political connections represent an indicator variable that equals 1 if a bank has at least one politically connected director on the board of directors and zero otherwise.

This study documents that political connections are negatively associated with effective tax rate, while joint audit is positively related to the same variable. We also find that the negative association between political connections and effective tax rate becomes insignificant for joint-audited banks, while it remains negative and significant for banks audited by one auditors.

The findings of this study have policy implications for banking industry because joint audit reduces the adverse effect of political connections on tax avoidance.