기업 조세회피와 세무위험 간 비선형관계에 관한 실증연구

초록

[Purpose] Tax avoidance and tax risk have traditionally been perceived as a trade－off. However, as some opposite empirical evidence has been reported recently, conflicting views have been presented that firms with the ability to manage tax risk well engage more in tax avoidance. From this perspective, it seems that tax avoidance and tax risk are empirically in a complementary relationship. This study integrates these two contradicting perspectives and proposes a curvilinear relationship between corporate tax avoidance and tax risk. If the level of tax avoidance is within a certain range, the level of tax avoidance is determined according to the ability to manage tax risk. On the other hand, if a firm aggressively increases tax avoidance beyond the limits of manageable tax risk, tax risk may increase with tax avoidance. [Methodology] This study examines the relationship between tax avoidance and tax risk using a sample of 5,201 firm－year observations from 916 nonfinancial listed firms in Korea in the period 2003－2018. Tax avoidance is measured as one－year (short－term) and fiveyear (long－term) effective tax rates, and tax risk is measured as the standard deviation of annual effective tax rates over the five－year period. [Findings] We find a negative association between corporate tax avoidance and tax risk. We also find that this negative correlation is mitigated by increasing both the incremental tax avoidance and the incremental tax risk in situations where the level of tax avoidance is high, indicating a curvilinear relationship between corporate tax avoidance and tax risk. [Implications] This study contributes in that it suggests a new perspective on the overall relationship between corporate tax avoidance and tax risk by providing empirical evidence that the relationship between tax avoidance and tax risk can be differentiated according to the level of tax avoidance.

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