Political costs and corporate tax avoidance: Evidence from sin firms

The products and services of firms operating in sin industries (alcohol, tobacco, gambling, and firearms) run contrary to social norms and can produce significant negative externalities for society. As such, we expect that sin firms are at greater risk of incurring political costs in the form of additional regulation, higher excise taxes, or capital market intervention if they come under scrutiny for their income tax avoidance practices. Because of the nature of their products, regulators and policymakers are likely to face less pushback on new regulations or taxes on these firms. Sin firms start with a lower ability to influence the political process than firms in non-sin industries. Consequently, we hypothesize and find that sin firms exhibit less tax avoidance than non-sin firms, particularly through uncertain and more risky tax avoidance strategies. The negative relationship between the status of sin firms and tax avoidance is less pronounced in firms that accumulate political capital via intensive lobbying activities. Exploiting changes in partisan control of the Congress and White House, difference-in-differences tests show that firearm firms engage in less (more) tax avoidance when the Democrats (Republican) control both the Congress and White House. Overall, we conclude that political costs play an important role in corporate tax avoidance decisions.     

Women accountants: Is the grass greener outside the profession?

Studies of professional accountancy firms have indicated a complex process of internal socialisation which shapes the professional and organisational identities of the chartered accountants working within them. These processes have acted as a mechanism for excluding women, hindering their progress and facilitating their exit. Previous evidence suggests that women leave professional accountancy firms in order to accommodate more flexibility, experience less pressure, achieve consistency of hours and hence attain a better work/life balance.In this paper we seek to examine whether the gendered work practices of professional accountancy firms influence female choice to seek alternative employment outside the professional accountancy firm environment. Specifically the paper seeks to answer two research questions (1) why and when do women leave professional accountancy firms? (2) is the working environment outside professional accountancy firms less gendered?Data was collected by means of a postal questionnaire distributed in 2005 to women who had qualified in the years 1990–1995 (n = 1022). Responses were received from 370 women, of whom 100 were employed with professional accountancy firms and 270 employed within industry. In depth interviews were also conducted with 7 partners in professional accountancy firms and 6 women who had left the professional accountancy environment to pursue employment elsewhere.Whilst there was evidence that professional accountancy firms continue to reflect gendered working norms practices, rather than compound the dominant view, this study suggests that the primary reason women leave professional accountancy firms is to seek more interesting work as opposed to obtaining more flexibility in their working lives. In addition, the experiences of the women, the working patterns, and rates of progression were similar irrespective of employment type.     

我国注册会计师行业发展状况的分析与研究:成就与意义、问题与挑战、启示与建议

本文利用我国注册会计师行业的历史数据,系统研究了我国注册会计师行业发展问题。研究发现,我国注册会计师行业在促进我国社会经济发展过程中发挥了积极作用,做出了显著贡献。与此同时,也存在因不当审计行为招致的行政处罚、诉讼仲裁案件趋于增长和近年来屡屡遭遇声誉危机事件等问题,未来发展也面临行业过度竞争、薪酬竞争力不足、事务所分所管理和质量控制不力、行业数字化转型迟缓等诸多挑战。笔者建议:(1)厘清财务报告的会计责任与审计责任,明确注册会计师法律责任,促成社会各界对注册会计师审计形成合理期望;(2)会计师事务所必须转变发展理念,着力做强做优,严守职业道德底线,完善事务所治理结构,改进分所管理和质量控制,大力推进数字化转型,持续提升审计质量和服务效率;(3)积极而有效地改善注册会计师行业发展环境,尤其是要通过进一步优化审计服务招投标制度,适当降低价格因素在注册会计师选聘中的权重,逐步扭转行业过度竞争局面;(4)通过更为及时和更大力度的监管检查,进一步加强和完善行业监管,对事务所及时进行风险提示。     

Types of nonaudit service fees and earnings response coefficients in the post-sarbanes-oxley era

In this study, we partition the joint provision of nonaudit services (NAS) into audit-related, tax, and all other services, and examine whether these services have varying impacts on independence-in-appearance, as measured by earnings response coefficients, over an extended period following the enactment of SOX. Prior research examining independence-in-appearance generally focuses on the years surrounding SOX and uses an aggregate NAS measure despite anecdotal and experimental evidence that there may be heterogeneity in how investors perceive different types of NAS. We first show, consistent with prior research, that an aggregate measure of NAS does not, on average, significantly influence earnings response coefficients. We then partition NAS fees by type and provide evidence that investors have negative perceptions of audit-related NAS and positive perceptions of tax NAS, and that these two effects cancel out one another in aggregate. Further investigation reveals that our results are driven by firms with high levels of accruals and smaller firms, which further corroborates our findings. We also find that measures of financial dependence fail to fully capture the channels through which NAS influences investor perceptions. Lastly, we provide evidence that perceptions of tax NAS are, in part, driven by their effect on a firm's tax strategies.     

A Tale of Two Classes: The Privatisation of Medway Ports

This paper presents a case study of the privatisation of a UK port, Medway Ports, which was sold to a Management and Employee Buyout consortium in 1992 with assistance from the accountancy firm of Price Waterhouse. Half the work force was then dismissed by the new management and forced to sell back their shares which were valued at £2.50 by another accounting firm, KPMG Peat Marwick. Within a short time, Medway was resold to Mersey Dock & Harbour Company for £37 per share, making millions for Medway's directors and financial backers. The resale price was eight times more than the amount the UK Treasury had received from the original sale only 18 months earlier prompting an investigation into the government's handling of the privatisation. The study examines the privatisation of Medway Ports as a focal point for understanding the role major accountancy firms have played in the neo-liberal privatisation programme.     

Strategies and dividend imputation: the effect of foreign and domestic ownership on average effective tax rates

This study examines how dividend imputation affects the incentive of New Zealand firms to minimize tax. By effectively eliminating double taxation on company income, imputation reduces firms’ incentives to engage in costly tax minimization strategies. Before September 1993, resident and nonresident shareholders were treated differently under New Zealand’s imputation system. Because imputation credits cannot be passed to shareholders unless dividends are paid, we expect firms to pursue different tax paying strategies depending on their level of foreign ownership and their dividend payout ratios. After September 1993 when imputation credits were extended to nonresident portfolio shareholders, we expect that firms with high foreign ownership and high dividend payouts would have less incentive to minimize tax. Our results provide some support for these expectations.     

Funding Liquidity without Banks: Evidence from a Shock to the Cost of Very Short‐Term Debt

In 2011, Colombia instituted a tax on repayment of bank loans, which increased the cost of short‐term bank credit more than long‐term credit. Firms responded by cutting short‐term loans for liquidity management purposes and increasing the use of cash and trade credit. In industries in which trade credit is more accessible (based on U.S. Compustat firms), we find substitution into accounts payable and little effect on cash and investment. Where trade credit is less available, firms increase cash and cut investment. Thus, trade credit provides an alternative source of liquidity that can insulate some firms from bank liquidity shocks.     

Credit refinancing and corporate tax avoidance

This study examines the disciplining effects of credit markets on firms’ corporate tax avoidance strategies. We show that, during adverse credit market conditions, firms with refinancing needs prefer to limit the after-tax cash flow benefits of tax avoidance to regain access to traditionally risk-averse credit markets. Our results show that firms increase their cash effective tax rate by two percentage points when facing refinancing constraints, and this effect is more pronounced for firms with lower asset redeployability and higher default probability. However, corporate governance mechanisms mitigate the relationship between tax avoidance and credit refinancing. Moreover, we show that firms decrease their tax avoidance strategies while leaving their leverage and debt shield unchanged. Overall, our findings are consistent with the observation that credit markets put pressure on tax-avoiding firms and contribute to the policy debate on disciplining tax avoiders.     

Interest Rates in Trade Credit Markets

All things equal, interest rates should increase with the borrower's risk. And yet, Klapper, Laeven, and Rajan (2012) cannot find such a positive relation in a broad sample of trade credit contracts. We shed some light on this puzzle by arguing that competition between informed and uninformed suppliers weakens the link between the trade credit cost and the borrower's creditworthiness. Our model implies that trade credit rates are more likely to increase with the borrower's risk if suppliers are less profitable, have high cost of funds, or sell inputs to firms plagued by moral hazard and financial distress.     

Taxes and Financial Constraints: Evidence from Linguistic Cues

Using a new measure of financial constraints based on firms’ qualitative disclosures, we find that financially constrained firms—firms that use more negative words in their annual reports—pursue more aggressive tax planning strategies as evidenced by: (1) higher current and future unrecognized tax benefits, (2) lower short‐ and long‐run current and future effective tax rates, (3) increase in tax haven usage for their material operations, and (4) higher proposed audit adjustments from the Internal Revenue Service. We exploit the unexpected closures of local banks as exogenous liquidity shocks to show that firms’ external financial constraints affect their tax avoidance strategies. Overall, the linguistic cues in firms’ qualitative disclosures provide incremental information beyond traditional accounting variables or commonly used effective tax rates to reveal and predict tax aggressiveness, both contemporaneously and in the future.