Corporate Political Connections and Tax Aggressiveness

This study investigates the relation between corporate political connections and tax aggressiveness. We study a broad array of corporate political activities, including the employment of connected directors, campaign contributions, and lobbying. Using a large hand‐collected data set of U.S. firms' political connections, we find that politically connected firms are more tax aggressive than nonconnected firms, after controlling for other determinants of tax aggressiveness, industry and year fixed effects, and the endogenous choice of being politically connected. Our findings are robust to various measures of political connections and tax aggressiveness. These results are consistent with the conjecture that politically connected firms are more tax aggressive because of their lower expected cost of tax enforcement, better information regarding tax law and enforcement changes, lower capital market pressure for transparency, and greater risk‐taking tendencies induced by political connections.     

Inquiry Letters and Tax Aggressiveness

This study examined the impact of inquiry letters on corporate tax aggressiveness based on the special inquiry system in Chinese stock exchanges. It found that the receipt of inquiry letters significantly inhibited tax aggressiveness. The channel through which inquiry letters worked involved a monitoring effect on related-party transactions. The disincentive effect of inquiry letters on corporate tax aggressiveness was mainly found in firms with overseas operations, low-quality of internal control, and weak tax enforcement. Examining the textual information in inquiry letters, the results show that more questions and the demand for a specific opinion from the auditor led to a greater disincentive effect. The level of detail in firms' reply letters weakened this disincentive effect. Finally, the disincentive effect of tax aggressiveness was more pronounced when inquiry letters pointed to tax-related issues.     

What Enhances Insider Trading Profitability?

This study analyses the factors triggering insider trading profitability. Since there is not much evidence on this topic in the continental-European context, we focus on the Spanish stock market. Our findings show that the main relevant factors (the timing ability of the insider, the transparency of the transaction and the level of free cash flow of the firm) are related to insiders’ opportunities behaviour, motivated by the lack of either managerial control within the firm or enforcement of insider trading regulation. The level of ownership concentration, the spread and the interaction between the size and the transparency of the transaction are other relevant factors, some of them tested for the first time in the insider trading literature.      

内幕交易监管：文献梳理和博弈分析

近几年,我国证券市场的内幕交易案件频发,极大地伤害了投资者的信心,危及证券市场的健康发展。因此,亟需对内幕交易进行严格监管。文章首先对相关研究文献进行梳理,然后通过建立一个博弈模型来探讨内幕交易的监管问题。     

Financial Accounting Effects of Tax Aggressiveness: Contracting and Measurement

This study examines a setting in which a tax‐reporting decision is delegated to a firm's tax manager. Using financial accounting measures of tax expense to evaluate the tax manager allows the firm to efficiently attain the level of tax avoidance it prefers, despite the fact that the consequences of the tax‐reporting decision will occur in the future. The study also examines how well two accounting measures of tax aggressiveness — cash taxes paid and the unrecognized tax benefit — distinguish between conservative and aggressive firms.     

An Empirical Analysis of Legal Insider Trading in The Netherlands

In this paper, we employ a registry of legal insider trading for Dutch listed firms to investigate the information content of trades by corporate insiders. Using a standard event-study methodology, we examine short-term stock price behavior around trades. We find that purchases are followed by economically large abnormal returns. This result is strongest for purchases by top executives and for small market capitalization firms, which is consistent with the hypothesis that legal insider trading is an important channel through which information flows to the market. We analyze also the impact of the implementation of the Market Abuse Directive (European Union Directive 2003/6/EC), which strengthens the existing regulation in the Netherlands. We show that the new regulation reduced the information content of sales by top executives.     

Especial Motives for Accounting Fraud ——A Case Study of Insider Trading

Guilin Jiqi is a pharmaceutical company listed on Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 1997. Possible motives for her accounting fraud in 2000 are thoroughly analyzed. Guilin Jiqi made up the accounting profit in the semi-annual report. Interestingly, the employee shares of Guilin Jiqi began to be tradable from June. After rejecting other possibilities, we find that this accounting fraud is possibly intended to help her employees, except top managers, to sell their shares at a huge profit.     

Expertise Rents from Insider Trading for Financial Experts on Audit Committees

We document the existence of expertise rents by finding that financial experts on audit committees obtain higher abnormal returns from insider purchases than do non‐financial experts on audit committees. We further investigate whether information processing skills work alone or jointly with an information advantage to generate expertise rents. While financial experts on audit committees outperform financial experts on other committees, financial experts on compensation, executive, nominating, and governance committees do not outperform non‐financial experts on these committees. These findings suggest that expertise rents are domain‐specific and can be obtained only when directors have both access to private information and information processing skills. In additional testing, we find that expertise rents for financial experts on audit committees are primarily driven by non‐accounting financial experts, whose finance or supervisory experience could make them better than accounting financial experts in understanding market conditions and assessing firm risk.     

股权激励的市场反应及其内幕交易的实证研究

文章以2008年1月份前推出股权激励计划的67家公司为样本,采用事件研究法,对股价在股权激励计划方案公布前后21个交易日是否存在超常收益率进行了实证研究。实证结果表明:样本公司的股票在事件窗口内存在显著为正的超常收益率,市场对这一事件作出了正向的回应,而且超常收益率主要是由消息公布产生的,不存在消息的提前泄露和内幕交易。     

机构投资者持股与内部人交易——基于中国A股市场的证据

作为证券监管机构的监管重点与难点，内部人交易一直以来备受关注。如何有效监督内部人交易，维护证券市场秩序与公平，保护中小投资者利益，是一个重要且具有现实意义的问题。基于2007-2015年中国A股上市公司内部人交易数据，文章探究了机构投资者持股对内部人交易获利能力的影响，发现：（1）机构投资者的存在会提高内部人买入行为的获利能力，会抑制内部人卖出行为的获利能力；（2）机构投资者对内部人交易的影响在卖出样本中存在截面差异，具体表现为在国有企业样本组和非两职合一样本组更显著；（3）机构投资者异质性分析发现，基金投资者会提升内部人买入交易的获利能力，合格的境外投资者会抑制内部人交易的总体获利能力，其他机构投资者一方面会促进买入行为的获利能力，一方面会抑制卖出行为的获利能力；（4）机制路径检验发现，机构投资者对内部人卖出交易的抑制作用存在提高公司盈余质量、提升治理水平和改善信息披露水平三种机制路径。总之，文章验证了机构投资者影响内部人交易的研究推论。     

Insider Trading Restrictions and Insiders’ Supply of Information: Evidence from Earnings Smoothing

We exploit the setting of first‐time enforcement of insider trading laws to investigate the relationship between insider trading opportunities and insiders’ supply of information. Insider trading opportunities motivate insiders to reduce their supply of information by concealing firm performance, thereby increasing their information advantage over outsiders, resulting in higher insider trading profits. Using data from 40 countries over the 1988–2004 period, we find that reporting opacity, as captured by earnings smoothness, decreases significantly after the initial enforcement of insider trading laws in countries with strong legal institutions. The decrease in earnings smoothness is positively related to the strictness of insider trading laws. The decrease in earnings smoothness is also more pronounced for countries that have more persistent insider trading law enforcement and for countries that impose more severe penalties on insider trading cases. Further analyses show that the decrease in earnings smoothness following insider trading enforcement is concentrated among firms that are not closely held and among high‐growth firms. In addition to uncovering a channel through which insider trading restrictions affect the information environment, our evidence highlights the importance of country‐ and firm‐level governance structures in determining the consequences of insider trading restrictions.     

基于税收信息化对企业纳税遵从的影响研究

实践证明,税收信息化对提高税收的遵从水平具有一定的显著效果.本文在我国税收信息化现有研究基础上,结合其时代背景,运用税收遵从相关的理论,分析新时代信息化发展的大背景下我国纳税人纳税遵从现状,找出当前企业税收不严格遵从的原因,并针对其存在的问题,提出完善互联网+税务服务平台、拓展大数据在税收征管中的应用领域等相关的提高企业纳税遵从的对策和建议,希望对提高我国新时代纳税人纳税遵从度具有一定的指导性和参考价值.     

Corporate Effective Tax Rates in the Netherlands

Summary This paper investigates the actual size of tax incentives granted to Dutch companies by using financial statement data for 1592 companies for the 1994--1999 period. Empirical results indicate that Dutch effective tax rates do not differ much from statutory tax rates. Although capital intensity is negatively associated with effective tax rates, only a small portion of the variance in effective tax rates can be explained. This indicates that the actual size of tax incentives granted to companies in the Netherlands is quite small.Comments by the editor, two anonymous reviewers, Willem Buijink, Yvonne Schols and participants at the annual European Accounting Association congress are gratefully acknowledged.     

Reforming the Corporate Income Tax: The Case for a Hybrid Cash-flow Tax

Summary This paper argues for the adoption of a hybrid cash-flow tax on corporations that, on the one hand, taxes only corporate rents as they accrue, and, on the other hand, treats real and financial transactions neutrally. It is, therefore, a superior tax compared to the conventional corporate income tax – on both economic and administrative grounds. Its design also addresses the usual concerns associated with cash-flow taxation. The base of this hybrid cash-flow tax is the aggregate net cash inflow of combined real and financial transactions excluding capital expenditures, for which conventional depreciation allowances are retained with interest as compensation for the opportunity cost of equity capital. Furthermore, it is argued that it should be implemented on a destination basis that would render transfer pricing and thin capitalization moot. This paper is a revised version of an IMF working paper (WP/06/117) previously circulated under the title “A Superior Hybrid Cash-Flow Tax on Corporations.” The views expressed herein are those of the author; they do not necessarily reflect IMF policy and should not be reported as representing the views of the IMF. Helpful comments from Richard Bird, Isaias Coelho, John Isaac, Michael Keen, Russell Krelove, Alan Macnaughton, Peter Mullins, and two anonymous referees are gratefully acknowledged. Discussions with John Isaac have been particularly valuable. The usual disclaimer applies.