Corporate Governance Characteristics as a Stimulus to Tax Management

This article aimed to investigate whether corporate governance uses tax management to increase companies' performance. The objective was checking whether corporate governance characteristics, such as remuneration paid to the executive board, segregation between Chairman and CEO, and the independence and composition of the Board of Directors, influence tax management in Brazilian companies. At the same time, it aimed to identify whether the preceding tax management is reflected on the subsequent tax management. To do this, a sample of 355 Brazilian companies listed on the BM&FBOVESPA between 2008 and 2014 was used, in order to find out whether their corporate governance characteristics influenced tax management, something identified by calculating ETR, CashETR, and BTD. As a result, it was found (i) that the remuneration paid to executives may be regarded as a characteristic influencing tax management in Brazilian firms, and (ii) that the preceding tax management influences the future tax management. In addition, it was found that Brazilian companies do not rule out tax management benefits, since the average effective rate in the sample under analysis was 25%, and it is statistically lower than the nominal rate of taxes on earnings in Brazil, which is 34%.

本文旨在探究公司治理是否会通过税务管理（Tax Management）行为提升企业经营绩效。本研究的核心目标为验证两类命题：一是公司治理特征——包括向执行董事会（Executive Board）支付的薪酬、董事长与首席执行官（Chief Executive Officer, CEO）的两职分离、董事会（Board of Directors）的独立性与组成结构——是否会对巴西企业的税务管理行为产生影响；二是前期税务管理行为是否会对后续税务管理行为产生影响。为此，本研究选取2008年至2014年间在巴西证券期货交易所（BM&FBOVESPA）上市的355家巴西企业作为研究样本，通过计算有效税率（Effective Tax Rate, ETR）、现金有效税率（Cash Effective Tax Rate, CashETR）以及账面-应税差异（Book-Tax Differences, BTD）来衡量企业税务管理水平，以检验公司治理特征对税务管理的影响效应。研究结果表明：其一，向高管支付的薪酬可作为影响巴西企业税务管理行为的显著特征因素；其二，前期税务管理行为会对后续税务管理行为产生正向影响。此外，研究还证实巴西企业并未排斥税务管理带来的收益：本次分析样本的平均有效税率为25%，经统计学检验，该数值显著低于巴西企业收益的名义税率34%。