증여세 절감을 위한 경영자의 행태

Literature studies have shown that managers are giving stocks at a time when stock prices are low. Literature papers have analyzed and interpreted this from two perspectives. It is argued that managers have strategically timed the point of transfer of their stock ownership when they intentionally lower the stock price by managing earnings downwards and/or when managers consider price of their own stock undervalued based on unexposed expectation on future performance. No robust empirical studies have been conducted on both hypotheses. In this study, two perspectives were verified empirically. The empirical results of this study are as follows. There is no evidence that managers manage earnings downwards using discretionary accruals and/or abnormal operational activities before transferring their own stock. Next, firms with manager’s stock gift showed higher cost stickiness one year before the stock gift than the other firms. This implies that management transfer their stock ownership when expectations for future performance are high. This study is meaningful in that we empirically test and provide evidence that managers time their stock gift based on their prospects on future performance. There is an additional contribution in that we extend cost behavior model(Anderson et al. 2003) in tax accounting research to test manager’s expectation.