이월결손금의 미래법인세효과에 관한 재무분석가의 해석

We examine how analysts’ earnings forecast errors are affected by the income tax effect disclosure of net operation losses in financial statements. The current accounting standards regarding deferred income tax permit managers’ discretion when the managers disclose the future income tax effect of net operating losses as part of deferred tax assets. If the managers are confident that their firms can generate future earnings enough to offset the current net operating losses, they would disclose net operating losses as parts of deferred assets. If the managers are pessimistic, they would not disclose all the net operating losses as assets. Thus, the amount of net operating losses disclosed as deferred tax assets mirrors managers’ expectation of future earnings and it could be an important factor when analysts forecast the firms’ future earnings. As the amount of disclosure depends on manager’s discretion, net operating losses reported as parts of deferred tax assets have been investigated a means of earnings management in previous studies. Deferred tax disclosure in general has been tested in capital market studies if it would enhance the information usefulness of financial statements. Apart from most disclosure items in the financial statements, future income tax effect disclosure of net operating losses could be too complicated to be understood by both naive and sophisticated information users. Our study investigates the impact of net operating losses disclosure on both analysts earnings forecast errors and stock market valuation. If the managers’ expectation of future profitability is honestly disclosed in the net operating losses section of deferred tax assets and the analysts do not fail to comprehend the managers’ discretion correctly, the disclosure would enhance information usefulness of financial statements and reduce analysts’ earnings forecast errors. If the managers use the disclosure as a means for earnings management or analysts are not capable of comprehending the information, the disclosure would increase analysts’ earnings forecast errors. Although the disclosure might be useful for some analysts, it is not certain the disclosure could be appreciated or utilized by less sophisticated investors in the stock market. We argue that the income tax effect disclosure of net operating losses would contribute neither to reducing analysts’ earnings forecast error nor to enhancing the information usefulness of financial statements in the capital market. Our explanatory variables are alternative measures of deferred tax assets amount that is recognized due to net operating losses expected to be offset with future earnings. We use a dummy variable for the firms reporting net operating losses as parts of deferred tax assets, a level variable for the amount of net operating losses, and a change variable for the incremental amount of net operating losses from prior years. Our dependent variables are alternative measures of analysts’ forecast errors. The signed value of forecast errors is used to measure the bias in forecast errors while the absolute value of forecast errors is used to measure the accuracy of forecast errors. Our main hypothesis is that income tax effect disclosure of net operating losses (measured by a dummy, level or change variable) affects analysts’ earnings forecast errors (measured by bias or accuracy of errors). As an additional analysis, we test whether income tax effect disclosure of net operating losses has an impact on the stock price. Samples are selected from KIS-Value, Fn-Guide databases to represent non-financial, December fiscal-year-end firms that were listed in the Korean Stock Exchange from 1999 to 2004. Our findings suggest that (1) analysts’ earnings forecast accuracy declines for the firms that recognize the income tax effect of net operating losses, (2) analysts’ earnings forecast shows optimistic bias for the firms that reported the increase in deferred tax asset components of net operating losses from the previous year, and (3) stock price responds negatively for the amount of deferred tax assets recognized due to net operating losses expected to be offset in the future. Thus, the disclosure of net operating losses in deferred tax assets is found to not only increase analysts’ earnings forecast errors but also cause optimistic bias in errors. The disclosure is not perceived favorably by the stock market investors, too. We conclude that the current disclosure practice of net operating losses as parts of deferred tax assets does not contribute to the usefulness of the financial statement information for both sophisticated users like analysts and naive investors in the stock market. The disclosure does not effectively alleviate the information asymmetry between managers and financial statement users.