회계이익과 세무이익의 차이가 자본구조에 미치는 영향

The objectives and rules of recognizing accounting income are different from those of recognizing taxable income, and this makes accounting income different from taxable income. That is, there are book-tax differences (hereinafter BTD). BTD are classified into temporary differences and permanent differences. Temporary differences arise because managerial discretion is permitted in recognizing the periodic accounting income, whereas objectivity is important in recognizing the periodic taxable income. In other words, temporary differences reflect differences in the timing of recognition that will reverse in the future. On the contrary, permanent differences arise because the concept and scope of accounting income are different from those of taxable income, and so, they do not reverse in the future. Understanding the above-mentioned causes of BTD, previous studies have been done on whether BTD reflect some characteristics of accounting income, and the overall conclusion of the studies is that BTD reflect the quality of accounting income and the future growth of earnings. But the previous studies, in general, do not identify separately the contents that temporary differences and permanent differences reflect in terms of the quality of accounting income and the future growth of earnings. Management of accounting income through discretionary accruals would lower the quality of accounting income. And increasing(decreasing) accounting income through discretionary accruals leads to positive(negative) temporary differences. On the contrary, permanent differences are driven not by accrual accounting but by tax benefits(or disadvantages) that entail alleviation(or overload) of tax payment. And when a firm's current tax benefits(or disadvantages) are relatively high compared to those of other firms, this relatively high level of tax benefits(or disadvantages) would dwindle in the future. From these points, it is expected that the quality of accounting income is the lower for the higher absolute value of temporary differences, and the future growth of earnings is the lower for the higher permanent differences. Existing empirical studies support this expectation. Besides, previous studies support the following 2 expectations. First, when the quality of accounting income is the higher, debt borrowing conditions would become the more favorable because the firm's credit and the reliability of financial statements are the more overrated, and as a result, the debt level would be the higher, other things being equal. Second, internal capital raising is better than debt financing in terms of lowering the information and transaction costs or escaping the costs due to the decrease in financial flexibility, and so, when the future growth of earnings is the higher, the debt level would be the lower, other things being equal. Based on the above-mentioned matters, this paper investigates for the KSE-listed companies whether the permanent differences and the absolute value of temporary differences have effects on capital structure. Main test results are as follows. First, the higher the absolute value of temporary differences the lower the debt level, and the higher the permanent differences the higher the debt level. Second, temporary differences have relevance with the quality of accounting income and permanent differences have relevance with the future growth of earnings, and so, these two have effects on debt level differently in their respective way and direction. Third, in case of the profit firms, the degree of the lower quality of accounting income for the higher absolute value of temporary differences is stronger, and the degree of the lower future growth of earnings for the higher permanent differences are weaker than in case of the loss firms. And the degree of the lower future growth of earnings for the higher permanent differences is not qualitatively different between the firms with positive permanent differences and the firms with negative permanent differences.