盈余管理与所得税支付:基于会计利润与应税所得之间差异的研究

Earnings Management and Income Tax Payment:Evidence from Book-Tax Differences

公司在进行盈余管理时,往往面临着财务报告成本与税务成本的权衡。为了摆脱该困境,公司有动机通过操纵非应税项目损益,以规避盈余管理的所得税成本。本文通过考察会计利润与应税所得差异(Book-Tax Differences)和盈余管理之间的关系,证实了该假设。我们的研究表明,上市公司盈余管理幅度越大,则会计利润与应税所得差异(本文定义为非应税项目损益)也越高,即上市公司通过操纵非应税项目损益,以规避盈余管理的税负成本。我们的研究进一步发现,上市公司通过非应税项目损益规避盈余管理税负成本的行为主要发生在高税率组别,而享受所得税优惠的公司则没有呈现出该特征。另外,我们的研究还发现,上市公司主要通过操纵长期应计项目规避所得税负。但我们的研究也表明,上市公司通过非应税项目损益规避的盈余管理税负成本较为有限,平均每1元操纵利润中,只有1．8分的操纵利润可以规避所得税成本,这或许表明进行盈余管理的公司为了避免引起资本市场或税务当局的怀疑,而为其大部分利润操纵支付了所得税成本。此外,本文研究还发现,高税率公司存在强烈的通过非应税掼益项目规避所得税的动机。我们的样本公司中,平均而言,所得税税率每增加1个百分点,操纵非应税项目损益占资产的比例将增加0．029％;适用33％税率的公司与适用15％优惠税率的公司相比,为此所规避的所得税成本平均高达330万元。

Managers often face a tradeoff between financial reporting cost and taxation cost when they manipulate earnings. Therefore, they usually have the incentives to manipulate non-taxable earnings to avoid the tax obligation of earnings management. We support the hypothesis by examining the relation between book-tax differences and earnings management. Our analysis shows that book-tax differences is positively related with earnings management. We further discover that the companies in the higher tax rate group are more likely to escape the tax obligation of earnings management through non-taxable earnings and through long term accrue items. Our analysis also implies that the tax evasion through non-taxable items is quite limited. For one dollar manipulated earnings, only 1.8 cents are exempted from tax obligation, which implies that managers would rather pay tax for earnings management in order not to induce the suspicion of capital market or tax authority. We also find that the companies in the higher tax rate group have strong incentive to avoid tax obligation through non-taxable items. For our sample, when income tax rate increase 1 per cent point, the ratio of book-tax differences to total assets will increase by 0. 029%; compared with lower tax rate group, the companies in the higher tax rate group could save tax expenses of RMB 3.3 million through non-taxable earnings manipulation.