적극적 재무보고와 적극적 세무보고간의 관계 분석

초록

Prior accounting research typically investigates the tradeoffs between financial and tax reporting in settings where financial accounting and tax rules conform. But, consistent with the growing book-tax gap, research suggest that the substantial discretion available in GAAP provides managers the opportunity to manage their book income upward without affecting their taxable income. Moreover evidence suggests that companies were engaging in increasingly aggressive tax reporting practices. These combined evidence suggest that not all firms tradeoff financial and tax reporting decisions. That is, aggressive financial reporting firms are the same firms as those with aggressive tax reporting. Frank et al.(2009) report the results that financial reporting aggressiveness is positively related to tax reporting aggressiveness. But, in Korea, the ability to engage in both aggressive financial reporting and aggressive tax reporting depends on the availability of the tax reduction devices corresponding to the upward managed book income. This study examines whether firms that are aggressive for financial reporting purposes are also aggressive for tax reporting purposes. We define aggressive financial reporting as upward earnings management that may or may not be within the confines of GAAP and aggressive tax reporting as downward management of taxable income or tax burden through tax planning activities that may or may not be considered fraudulent tax evasion. We use performance matched discretionary accruals as our proxy for financial reporting aggressiveness and industry-size adjusted GAAP ETR as our proxy for tax reporting aggressiveness. While most prior research considers financial and tax reporting decisions as exogenous choices, we model financial and tax reporting decisions as endogenously related. Specifically we use 2SLS to examine the endogenous relation between financial and tax reporting aggressiveness. Using 2SLS regression and a sample of 3,626 firm-year data listed in Korean stock market from 2000 to 2009, we find evidence that financial reporting aggressiveness is negatively related to tax reporting aggressiveness in Korea. We also analyse the implications of financial and tax reporting aggressiveness for shareholder wealth by examining stock returns in the year of and in the year after the aggressiveness reporting behavior. We find that aggressive financial reporting generates higher contemporaneous returns and lower subsequent stock returns, consistent with the accrual anomaly research. But there is no evidence that the mispricing of tax reporting aggressiveness is concentrated in the highest quintile of financial reporting aggressiveness. This result does not agree with that of Frank et al.(2009). This study addresses a firm's willingness to simultaneously engage in aggressive financial and tax reporting behavior and reports the result that financial reporting aggressiveness is negatively related to tax reporting aggressiveness in Korea. This study can be useful to both financial and tax regulators, and other stockholders, who have a vested interest in understanding the interaction of financial and tax reporting decisions.

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