감가상각방법의 변경이 설비투자에 미치는 영향

With the adoption of Korean International Financial Reporting Standards, most companies that use declining balance depreciation have changed to straight line depreciation because the declining balance depreciation requires the evidence showing more frequent use of the depreciated asset in the early period of its useful life. To mitigate the increase of the tax burden, tax authorities exceptionally allowed the companies that use straight line depreciation for financial reporting to adjust their depreciation expenses by using declining balance depreciation for tax reporting for their capital investment implemented by the end of 2013. It was, however, argued that the termination of the exceptional allowance at the end of 2013 could be an obstacle to capital investment because of the increased tax burden. The purpose of this study is to analyze empirically whether the firms that have changed declining balance depreciation to straight line depreciation (hereafter depreciation change firms) really reduced their capital investment after 2013. The results show that both depreciation change firms and non-change firms have reduced their capital investment in the 2014 ~ 2016 period. But we find no evidence that depreciation change firms have decreased their capital investment more than non-change firms after 2013. Also, we find no evidence that depreciation change firms have increased their capital investment in 2013 to avoid additional tax burden after 2013. These findings suggest that the increased tax burden from the depreciation changes does not lead to reducing actual capital investment since it is a secondary factor for investment decision.