K-IFRS 도입 후 감가상각 변경기업들의 이익조정

Accounting depreciation affects firms’financial statements that are frequently used in contracts, disclosures to capital markets, internal decision-making and control, and tax computations. At the time a fixed asset is placed in service, managers establish its depreciation schedule by choosing a dapreciation method-typically straight-line or accelerated-and estimating the asset’s service life and salvage value. For example, the use of accelerated depreciation methods will reduce(enlarge) net income in the initial period(in the ending period) relative to what would have been reported if straight-line depreciation had been used. As the above findings suggest, this research examined the earnings management by distinguishing between the enterprises which adopted the changes in the depreciation methods and the groups that follow the number of elapsed years in depreciation. The results of the analysis are as follows. First, after the introduction of K-IFRS, there were no differences in earnings management between the enterprises which changed the depreciation methods and those which did not change. In other words, it can be inferred that a considerable number of enterprises which applied the declining balance method of depreciation in K-GAAP changed the declining balance method to the straight line method for the reason that the declining balance method did not correspond to economic reality, or also that changes of extending predicted service life for longer periods were not used for earnings management but were used in the direction of well reflecting the economic reality of tangible assets. Second, the results of the analysis of the earnings management between the enterprises which performed accounting changes by group, based on the accumulated depreciation (elapsed useful life) against the acquisition cost of tangible assets and the enterprises which did not perform accounting changes showed that only the groups whose elapsed service life was in the early stage had significant relationships with discretionary accruals. This shows that there is a motive for increasing profits through changes of depreciation methods since there is a burden of making provision for high depreciation costs in the early period of elapsed service life when the declining balance method is applied. Unlike previous studies focused on the choice of different depreciation methods, our research focus on earnings management motivation of different depreciation periods due to the choice of depreciation methods. And this result can serve as a evidence of the effect of the Settlement Adjustment enacted by the Corporate Tax Law on the Corporate Accounting