지속적인 세무전략이 기업신용등급에 미치는 영향

We investigate whether firms with sustainable tax strategies benefit from higher credit ratings relative to firms implementing minimization tax strategies. Recent empirical and anecdotal evidence suggests that firms’ tax strategies have at least two recognizable dimensions, sustainability and minimization(e.g., McGuire et al. 2013；Neuman et al. 2016 etc.). Tax strategies focusing on sustainability strive to achieve a consistent reported tax outcome over time [i.e., a narrow range of cash effective tax rates(cash ETRs)], with less emphasis on the outcome’s level. In contrast, tax strategies that focus on minimization(i.e., the level of tax avoidance) seek to reduce firms’ explicit tax burdens and achieve the lowest possible tax outcome(i.e., a low ETR). However, studies that focus on the level of a firm’s tax avoidance implicitly assume that the primary objective a firm’s tax strategy is to minimize taxes(Shackelford and Shevlin 2001；Scholes et al. 2008). Scholes et al.(2008) develop a framework that suggests that the ultimate goal of a firm’s tax strategy is to maximize after-tax returns, which is not necessarily achieved by minimizing taxes, noting that effective tax planning is not equivalent to tax minimization. For examples, prior researches find that firms with sustainable tax strategies have more persistent pre-tax earnings and earnings components and also find that investors are able to infer the sustainability of a firm’s tax strategy and use it as a signal to assess the persistence of pre-tax earnings and earnings components(McGuire et al. 2013). Neuman et al.(2013) find that firms with sustainable tax strategies have more transparent information environments and Neuman(2016) find that firms implementing sustainable tax strategies earn significantly higher median buy-and-hold returns than firms implementing minimization tax strategies. Therefore, we extend the prior research by providing novel evidence on credit rating agency use it as a positive signal to assess the sustainable of a firm’s tax strategy. For this analysis, following the methodology of prior research that we employ empirical measures of the sustainability of firm’s tax strategies Specifically, we measure the coefficient of variation for annual cash ETRs for the five-year period that includes the current year’s cash ETR and the four prior years’ cash ETRs (i.e., over the period t－4 to t). The coefficient of variation for cash ETRs (hereafter SUSTAIN) is the standard deviation of annual cash ETRs(hereafter TR) scaled by the absolute value of the mean of annual cash ETRs over the same five-year period(e.g., McGuire et al. 2013；Neuman 2016) and we measure aggressive tax avoidance as if its five-year cash ETR, measured from year t－4 to t(Dyreng et al. 2008), is in the lowest quintile(Donohoe and Knechel 2014). Following the prior studies(Park and Yoon 2013；Jo 2016), this paper employ corporate credit rating come from KISVALUE. Our sample of observations covers KOSPI and KOSDAQ listed firms based on the test variable(based on the dependent variable) from 2003 to 2016(from 2004 to 2017), thus we use 8,328 firm-year observations. Our empirical results reveal the following. After controlling for several factors that affect credit rating, we find that positive and significant coefficients on SUSTAIN(TR) in all specifications of the model(all p ＜ 0.01), which suggests that, at the average, firms with sustainable tax strategies have significantly higher credit rating. Whereas, we find that negative and significant coefficients on tax avoidance, firms with minimization tax strategies have significantly lower credit rating, which suggesting that minimization may not be the only method of tax planning that maximizes value. Our overall inferences are unchanged when using this alternative measure of cash ETR and GAAP ETR. In addition, when we divided the sample into KOSPI and KOSDAQ listed firms, we find that obtain similar results. These result is consistent with the Scholes-Wolfson’s framework, which suggests that effective tax planning balances tax and other considerations to maximize firm value and provides evidence on the undersheltering puzzle. It seems that not all firms choose to minimize taxes because they can derive benefits using alternative tax planning approaches. In sum, our results show that firms with sustainable tax strategies (minimization tax strategies) are associated with higher(lower) credit rating. Then, this study contributes to the literature on tax strategy and credit rating by establishing a connection between the sustainability of firms’ tax strategies and credit rating. In addition to providing the first empirical examination of the factors that connect sustainable tax strategies to corporate credit rating, compared to firms adopting minimization tax strategies. Specifically, our result is consistent with Scholes-Wolfson’s theory, which suggests that effective tax planning balances tax cost and non-tax cost considerations to maximize firm value. By providing initial evidence on an alternative tax strategy adopted by firms, this study offers an avenue for future research to further explore firms’ tax planning.