دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی تاثیر برآورد نرخ بهره سود سهام بر اجتناب مالیات شرکت: مورد ارزش سهامداران - الزویر 2018

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to evaluate whether dividend imputation, whereby tax credits may be passed on to shareholders for corporate tax paid, impacts corporate tax avoidance. This is undertaken with a pooled cross-sectional research design evaluating differences in tax avoidance across firms where there are significant differences in corporate tax avoidance incentives. Specifically, potential differences arise between firms paying dividends with tax credits, paying dividends without tax credits, and not paying dividends. Results suggest that firms paying dividends with tax credits attached are less likely to engage in tax avoidance with an average cash effective tax rate up to 16.9 percentage points higher than firms that pay dividends without tax credits, and up to 14.7 percentage points higher than firms that do not pay dividends at all. Accordingly, this provides insights into the effectiveness of dividend imputation in mitigating corporate tax avoidance, as well as providing support for the continuance of dividend imputation in Australia. Additionally, a positive association is found to exist between outside directors and corporate tax avoidance, extending to firms paying dividends with tax credits where dividend imputation is expected to mitigate such a relation. In combination, these results suggest heterogeneity of costs and benefits of tax avoidance and this is a challenge in evaluating corporate tax aggressiveness generally, and the impact of corporate governance on corporate tax avoidance in particular.

Conclusion

The objective of this paper is to evaluate whether dividend imputation impacts corporate tax avoidance. Next, is to test the assumption of extant literature that in dividend imputation environments, managers in all firms will not engage in tax avoidance, as it is ineffective in increasing shareholders‘ wealth (Lasfer, 1996; Amiran et al., 2016). Specifically, testing if the costs and benefits of corporate tax avoidance, as implicitly assumed by Lasfer (1996) and Amiran et al. (2016) are homogenous in an imputation setting. Rigorous theoretical analysis in this paper proposes (H1) that firms paying tax credits undertake less tax avoidance than those which do not. A significantly lower level of corporate tax avoidance for firms that are paying dividends with tax credits is found to be exhibited across sample firm-years. This is economically significant with firms paying dividends with tax credits attached having a cash ETR up to 16.9 percentage points higher than firms that pay dividends without tax credits, and up to 14.7 percentage points higher than firms that do not pay dividends. Therefore, dividend imputation alters the balance between the costs and benefits of tax avoidance by providing the same level of benefits as tax avoidance without incurring the associated costs. This confirms that there is a corporate response to Australian dividend imputation in the form of changed firm tax behaviour. H2, H3 and H4 specifically relate to the contention that the costs and benefits of tax avoidance are homogenous, thereby, as corporate tax avoidance increases the return to shareholders it would be in the best interest of shareholders of all firms in a classical tax regime and as corporate tax avoidance decreases the return to shareholders it would not be in the best interest of shareholders of all firms in an imputation regime (Lasfer, 1996; Amiran et al., 2016).