Venture Companies and Tax Aggressiveness

We compare the tax aggressiveness of venture companies and non-venture companies. We examine how tax aggressiveness varies depending on the type of the venture company, where types are defined based on the capital structure and R&D intensity. Our results show that tax aggressiveness of venture companies is higher than that of non-venture companies. This suggests that venture companies face a more competitive environment and financial constraints. Due to the environment and characteristics of venture companies, despite various tax benefits, they are more likely to engage in aggressive tax planning. We categorize venture companies into three types according to the capital structure and R&D intensity, and we find the following. Venture companies that obtain equity financing (Type 1) show relatively high degree of tax aggressiveness compared to companies who obtain debt financing (Type 3). This suggests that financing through the guarantee of KTFC (Korean Technology Finance Corporation; Type 3) or borrowed from SBC (Small and medium Business Corporation; Type 3) is recorded as liability on the financial statement. Moreover, tax expense decreases because of the tax benefits from interest expenses. This shows that capital structure affects the tax aggressiveness of venture companies. Venture companies with high R&D intensity (Type 2) have relatively high degree of tax aggressiveness. As venture companies spend a significant part of their profit in R&D they record it as expenses rather than capitalize them as assets to minimize tax expenses. This study has three contributions. First, this paper extends the field of tax research related to venture companies. Second, even if venture companies have small tax burden due to various benefits and support policies, our results suggest that they are likely to establish aggressive tax planning presumably due to the special environment and characteristics. This result provides important insights in policy decisions regarding tax benefits for venture companies. Third, by categorizing venture companies by capital structure and R&D intensity, this study compares the different level of aggressiveness for each type of venture companies. We find a dissimilar result about tax aggressiveness for each type of venture companies, suggesting that tax authorities need to evaluate the tax policy individually according to the firm type.