避税、信息不对称与企业信息披露

Tax Avoidance,Information Asymmetry,and Corporate Information Disclosure

在企业避税活动日益普遍的背景下,避税对于企业信息披露行为的影响尤为值得关注。避税活动会导致企业组织架构复杂化、交易活动隐蔽化以及财务报告可读性降低,加剧信息不对称,进而损害公司价值。在此情况下,理性的管理层为了缓解信息不对称,有动机增加信息披露以满足外部投资者的信息需求。文章采用中国上市公司2008-2017年数据,研究发现,避税程度高的企业更愿意发布业绩预告,或在强制性预告要求下提供更为精确和准确的实质性信息。进一步研究发现,良好的治理机制可以增强管理层的披露动机,当机构投资者持股比例较高时,避税对于信息披露的促进作用更为明显。由此可见,企业管理层会披露更多信息来缓解避税活动带来的不利后果。

Based on the background of increasing corporate tax avoidance activities, this paper examines the impact of tax avoidance on corporate information disclosure behaviors. Tax avoidance tends to bring about the complexity of organizational structure,the concealment of private trading activities and the obscurity of financial reports, which will aggravate the information asymmetry and destroy firm value. In this case, rational managers are motivated to disclose more information to satisfy the needs of external investors for alleviating information asymmetry. Based on the data of China’s listed companies from 2008 to 2017, we find that firms with more aggressive tax planning are more likely to issue voluntary earnings forecasts or provide more precise and accurate estimates under requirement. We further find that good governance mechanism can enhance the management’s motivation for more disclosure. The positive effect of tax avoidance on information disclosure is stronger in firms with higher institutional investors portion. The findings demonstrate that managers try to mitigate negative consequences of aggressive tax avoidance activities through more disclosure.