The Internet as a Tax Haven?

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-35
Author(s):  
David R. Agrawal
Keyword(s):  
Average Rate ◽  
Tax Avoidance ◽  
Tax Rates ◽  
Standard Deviation Increase ◽  
Online Transactions ◽  
Online Sales ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Tax Haven ◽  
Internet Sales ◽  
Internet Penetration

If online transactions are tax free, increased online shopping may lower tax rates as jurisdictions seek to reduce tax avoidance; but, if online firms remit taxes, online sales may put upward pressure on tax rates because internet sales help enforce destination-based taxes. I find that higher internet penetration generally results in lower municipal tax rates but raises tax rates in some jurisdictions. The latter effect emerges in states where many online vendors remit taxes. A 1 standard deviation increase in internet penetration lowers local sales taxes in large municipalities by 0.15 percentage points, or 16 percent of the average rate. (JEL H25, H26, H71, L81, R51)

Do IRS Audits Deter Corporate Tax Avoidance?

2012 ◽  
Vol 87 (5) ◽  
pp. 1603-1639 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey L. Hoopes ◽  
Devan Mescall ◽  
Jeffrey A. Pittman
Keyword(s):  
Tax Avoidance ◽  
Tax Rates ◽  
Coefficient Estimates ◽  
Corporate Tax ◽  
Effective Tax Rates ◽  
Tax Enforcement ◽  
Public Firms ◽  
Large Samples ◽  
Percentage Points

ABSTRACT We extend research on the determinants of corporate tax avoidance to include the role of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) monitoring. Our evidence from large samples implies that U.S. public firms undertake less aggressive tax positions when tax enforcement is stricter. Reflecting its first-order economic impact on firms, our coefficient estimates imply that raising the probability of an IRS audit from 19 percent (the 25th percentile in our data) to 37 percent (the 75th percentile) increases their cash effective tax rates, on average, by nearly two percentage points, which amounts to a 7 percent increase in cash effective tax rates. These results are robust to controlling for firm size and time, which determine our primary proxy for IRS enforcement, in different ways; specifying several alternative dependent and test variables; and confronting potential endogeneity with instrumental variables and panel data estimations, among other techniques. JEL Classifications: M40; G34; G32; H25.

scholarly journals When Does Tax Avoidance Result in Tax Uncertainty?

2018 ◽  
Vol 94 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott D. Dyreng ◽  
Michelle Hanlon ◽  
Edward L. Maydew
Keyword(s):  
Transfer Pricing ◽  
Tax Avoidance ◽  
Pricing Strategies ◽  
Tax Rates ◽  
Effective Tax Rates ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Tax Haven ◽  
Tax Benefits ◽  
Tax Uncertainty

ABSTRACT We investigate the relation between tax avoidance and tax uncertainty, where tax uncertainty is the amount of unrecognized tax benefits recorded over the same time period as the tax avoidance. On average, we find that tax avoiders, i.e., firms with relatively low cash effective tax rates, bear significantly greater tax uncertainty than firms that have higher cash effective tax rates. We find that the relation between tax avoidance and tax uncertainty is stronger for firms with frequent patent filings and tax haven subsidiaries, proxies for intangible-related transfer pricing strategies. The findings have implications for several puzzling results in the literature.

The Cost of Independence: Evidence from Companies' Decisions to Dismiss Audit Firms as Tax-Service Providers

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 83-107
Author(s):  
Kirsten A. Cook ◽  
Kevin Kim ◽  
Thomas C. Omer
Keyword(s):  
Service Provision ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Tax Avoidance ◽  
Tax Planning ◽  
Tax Rates ◽  
Effective Tax Rates ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Sarbanes Oxley ◽  
Audit Firms ◽  
The Cost

SYNOPSIS This study examines whether companies' decisions to dismiss or substantially reduce reliance on their audit firms as tax-service providers in the wake of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act affect tax avoidance. We hypothesize that decoupling audit and tax-service provision and subsequently obtaining tax services from a new provider can result in decreased tax avoidance because the new provider lacks familiarity with a client's existing tax planning or does not have the expertise to generate new tax-avoidance opportunities. Consistent with our hypothesis, our results reveal that sample companies' book (cash) effective tax rates increased by economically significant 1.36 (1.63) percentage points in the year after terminating or substantially decreasing purchases of tax services from their audit firms, and discretionary permanent book-tax differences declined significantly. We find that decreases in tax avoidance were larger for companies whose outgoing tax-service providers were tax-specific industry experts.

scholarly journals The Interplay Between Tax Havens, Geographic Disclosures and Corporate Tax Avoidance: Evidence from European Union

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sameh Kobbi-Fakhfakh
Keyword(s):  
Tax Avoidance ◽  
Positive Association ◽  
Tax Rates ◽  
Corporate Tax ◽  
Effective Tax Rate ◽  
Effective Tax Rates ◽  
Tax Havens ◽  
Tax Rate ◽  
Reporting Practices ◽  
Tax Haven

Abstract This study examines the interplay between tax haven use, geographic disclosures and corporate tax avoidance. Based on a panel of 497 non-financial EU listed firms during the period 2006–2012, we provide evidence that corporate groups with affiliates in tax havens tend to have lower effective tax rates and lower geographic disclosures fineness scores. We, also, find a positive association between geographic disclosures fineness scores and the firms’ effective tax rates. We, further, find that the negative association between tax haven use and the effective tax rate is more pronounced for firms disclosing geographic information at a more aggregated level, showing a moderating effect of geographic disclosures fineness on such association. Our findings are based upon hand-collected data on corporate geographical dispersion, and corroborated by several additional and robustness tests. The research results should be of concern to policymakers and others interested in multinational companies’ segment reporting practices and tax planning activities.

Tax Haven Utilization and Tax Avoidance

2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 83-115
Author(s):  
Jong Kwon Ko ◽  
Hee Jin Park
Keyword(s):  
Tax Avoidance ◽  
Tax Haven

A Study of Perceived Ethicality of Low Corporate Effective Tax Rates

2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Todd DeZoort ◽  
Troy J. Pollard ◽  
Edward J. Schnee
Keyword(s):  
Mediation Analysis ◽  
General Public ◽  
Tax Avoidance ◽  
Tax Rates ◽  
Perceived Fairness ◽  
Effective Tax Rate ◽  
Effective Tax Rates ◽  
Tax Rate ◽  
Policy Practice ◽  
Participant Group

SYNOPSIS U.S. corporations have the ability to avoid paying domestic taxes to achieve an effective tax rate that is much lower than the statutory federal tax rate. This study evaluates the extent that individuals differ in their attitudes about the ethicality of corporations avoiding domestic taxes to achieve low effective tax rates. We also examine the extent to which the specific tax avoidance method used by corporations to access a low effective tax rate affects perceived ethicality. Eighty-two members of the general public and 112 accountants participated in an experiment with two participant groups and three tax avoidance methods manipulated randomly between subjects. The results indicate a significant interaction between participant group and tax avoidance method, with the general public considering shifting profits out of the country to achieve a low effective tax rate to be highly unethical, while the accountants find tax avoidance from carrying forward prior operating losses to be highly ethical. Further, mediation analysis indicates that perceived fairness and legality mediate the effects of participant type on perceived ethicality. Mediation analysis also reveals that sense of fairness and legality mediate the link between tax avoidance method and perceived ethicality. We conclude by considering the study's policy, practice, and research implications.

An Examination of Reputational Costs and Tax Avoidance: Evidence from Firms with Valuable Consumer Brands

2017 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chelsea Rae Austin ◽  
Ryan J. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Tax Avoidance ◽  
Tax Rates ◽  
Effective Tax Rates ◽  
Reputational Costs

ABSTRACT We expect firms with the greatest exposure to reputational damage among consumers will engage in lower levels of tax avoidance to minimize unwanted scrutiny that could impair the firms' reputation. We identify a set of firms with valuable consumer reputation using Harris Interactive's EquiTrend survey, which surveys consumers about their perceptions of valuable and prominent brands. We find evidence in support of our hypothesis that firms with valuable brands will engage in less tax avoidance. Specifically, we find a positive and significant association between our measure of reputation and both the GAAP and cash effective tax rates (measured over one and three years). We find mixed evidence on whether there is a negative and significant association between reputation and the probability the firm is engaging in tax sheltering.

Taxes and Haven Activities: Evidence from Linguistic Cues

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelvin K. F. Law ◽  
Lillian Mills
Keyword(s):  
Tax Rates ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Effective Tax Rates ◽  
Tax Effects ◽  
Tax Haven ◽  
Linguistic Cues ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Information Set ◽  
Mere Existence ◽  
Offshore Activities

Users of Exhibit 21 cannot tell whether a tax haven subsidiary is actively operating or a dormant shell company.  In this paper, we develop a new set of parsimonious measures to highlight the distinct mechanisms and tax effects of offshore sales to, as opposed to purchases from, tax haven countries, offering insights on the effects of certain types of offshoring activities on firms’ tax burdens.  Our main measure has about three times the effect of the mere existence of a haven subsidiary in explaining firms’ effective tax rates.  We detail the processes to predict the offshore activities in tax haven countries for firms without an Exhibit 21 and firms reporting no subsidiary operations in a tax haven country.  Relative to the mere mention of a tax haven subsidiary in Exhibit 21, our new measures provide a richer information set to capture different types of economic activities in tax haven countries.

The Incidence, Valuation and Management of Tax-related Reputational Costs: Evidence from a Period of Protest

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan S. Dhaliwal ◽  
Theodore H Goodman ◽  
P.J. Hoffman ◽  
Casey M Schwab
Keyword(s):  
Media Coverage ◽  
Abnormal Returns ◽  
Tax Avoidance ◽  
Social Protest ◽  
Tax Rates ◽  
Firm Characteristics ◽  
Political Costs ◽  
Time Invariant ◽  
Media Sentiment ◽  
Reputational Costs

We examine the incidence, valuation and management of tax-related reputational costs during 2011, a year of extensive social protest that temporarily increased scrutiny of corporate tax avoidance. We report three main results. First, tax avoidance is positively associated with negative media sentiment during the protest period (i.e., 2011). Second, a hedge portfolio long (short) in low (high) tax avoidance firms generates positive abnormal returns during the protest period. Third, firms experiencing the largest reputational costs during the protest period report higher tax rates in subsequent years. Supplemental analyses indicate tax-related media coverage increased during the protest period, and that the results are unlikely driven by political costs or other time-invariant firm characteristics. Our findings suggest that tax-related reputational costs are not pervasive. Instead, these costs only occur during periods of unusually high scrutiny, which helps explain prior studies' difficulties in providing large-sample evidence of tax-related reputational costs.

scholarly journals Banking and Industrialization

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (6) ◽  
pp. 1753-1796 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephan Heblich ◽  
Alex Trew
Keyword(s):  
Standard Deviation ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Employment Growth ◽  
Standard Deviation Increase ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Industrial Employment ◽  
Employment Share ◽  
Capital Intensive ◽  
Employment Data

AbstractWe establish a causal role for banking access in the spread of the Industrial Revolution over the period 1817–1881 by exploiting unique employment data from 10,528 parishes across England and Wales and a novel instrument. We estimate that a one standard deviation increase in 1817 finance employment increases annualized industrial employment growth by 0.93 percentage points. We establish the role of structural transformation as an underlying growth mechanism and show that banking access: (i) increases the industrial employment share; (ii) stimulates urbanization; and (iii) fosters inter-industry transition to high TFP, intermediate and capital-intensive sub-sectors.

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