소유경영자의 조세회피와 기업가치에 관한 실증연구: 코스닥 기업을 중심으로

This paper empirically examines the tax avoidance behavior of managers in a corporate governance framework. Specifically, this paper explores whether the level of corporate tax avoidance between owner-managers and professional managers differs. It then explores the effect of tax avoidance on corporate value which has been rarely studied in the current literature. If there exist the costs and benefits of tax avoidance and the trade-off between them becomes the criteria for managers' decision-making related to tax avoidance, it can affect corporate value and the extent of its impact on corporate value can differ depending on corporate governance. Thus, this paper examines whether the impact of tax avoidance on corporate value differs between owner-managers and professional managers. Empirical research is conducted focusing on firms registered on the KOSDAQ over the period from 2011 to 2019. Most of the KOSDAQ companies are small and medium-sized firms with relatively simple corporate governance. These characteristics make it easier to examine the tax avoidance behaviors of managers and their effects on corporate value from the perspective of corporate governance. According to the analysis results, it is found that owner-manager firms do not actively engage in tax avoidance compared to professional-manager firms and the higher the owner-manager ownership (50% or more), the less aggressive tax avoidance. It is thought that owner-managers are more aware that the costs outweigh the benefits due to tax avoidance compared to professional managers. Further analyses show that the negative impact of owner-managers' tax avoidance on firms' market value is significantly greater than that of professional managers. Thus, investors in the capital market perceive that the costs of avoiding tax for owner-managers outweigh the benefits, compared to professional managers. Such costs may include non-tax costs such as damage to the reputation of managers and their firms. Owner-managers are also concerned with passing their firms to their descendants. The family-related concern may force owner-managers to focus on family-related goals at the expense of financial goals. These non-tax costs can cause a more decline in the value of owner-manager firms than that of professional-manager firms. In Korea, there is not much difference between taxable income and accounting profit reported in financial statements. Therefore, if tax avoidance is achieved by lowering taxable income, it can also lead to a decrease in accounting profits, thereby resulting in a decline in corporate value. If the cost of the tax avoidance strategy is greater than the benefits and the owner-managers are concerned about a decline in corporate value, they are forced to show a passive tax avoidance tendency. The results of this paper suggest that investors in capital markets recognize that the costs of tax avoidance exceed its benefits and the extent to which the costs outweigh the benefits is greater for owner-manager firms than for professional-manager firms. Therefore, by studying the relationship between tax avoidance and corporate value, we can understand the decision-making process related to tax avoidance based on the trade-off between the costs of tax avoidance and its benefits from the perspective of corporate governance. This is our contribution to the current literature. As a limitation, it remains a task to secure the reliability of the definition of owner-manager classification. In addition, the methodology of measuring tax avoidance propensity using the difference between financial reporting income and taxable income has a limitation in that it may not accurately measure tax avoidance propensity. A more sophisticated tax avoidance measurement method needs to be developed in the future.