稅務代理人의 意思決定에 미치는 影響要因에 관한 實驗硏究 = (An) experimental research on factors affecting tax preparers' decision making

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Tax preparers play a very important role in our tax system, especially in corporate and personal income tax. For instance, in 1996 almost all the incom tax returns of the bookkeeping-taxpayers have been professionally prepared. To understand whether or how taxpayers comply with tax laws, it is indispensable to understand how tax professionals make judgements or decisions in the course of working for their clients.
Tax preparers are pressed to meet not only client's expectations but also tax administration's requests at the same time. So, it can be said that tax preparers play their business under the very unique environments.
The purpose of this research is to provide experimental evidence concerning tax preparers' behavior towards preparer sanctions and client's characteristics that affect tax preparers' reporting decisions. Basically my arguments are based on the traditional expected utility theory, more directly on the Kahnemann and Tversky's Prospect Theory.
Therefore, this study builds a model that there are causal relationships among client's characteristics, preparer penalty, and the decision made by paid tax prepare. Based on the model, this study examines the influences of penalty level, importance level, and aggressiveness level variables on the decision made by preparer.
This study extends prior research on preparers' behavior by examining, in an experimenting setting, how preparers apply an ambiguous area of tax law to ambiguous fact situations for a hypothetical client. The experimental sample is composed of 152 CPAs and 142 CTAs those dispersed nationwide, within the Republic of Korea. Subjects were required to examine hypothetical tax scenarios and make decisions for their hypothetical taxpayer-clients. And, all the data was collected by means of questionnaire.
All the independent variables were operated by two levels, so they are dichotomous variables. By contrast, the dependent variable, that was measured by 11 point scales, is one of continuous variables.
Hypotheses concerning with the relationships among clients' characteristics, tax administration's penalty, and tax preparers' decision making are as follows
Hypothesis 1 : Professional tax preparers will make more conservative decisions when an explicit threat of penalties are relatively high.
Hypothesis 2 : Professional tax preparers will make more conservative decisions for a client who is less important to them than a client who is more important to them.
Hypothesis 3 : Professional tax preparers will make more aggressive decisions for the taxpayer-clients who are relatively more risk seeking.
Hypothesis 4 : Preparer penalties will be more effective when a less important client is involved than when a more important client is involved.
Hypothesis 5 : Preparer penalties will be more effective when a more conservative client is involved than when a more risk-seeking client is involved.
Hypothesis 6 : Professional tax preparers will make more aggressive decisions for the taxpayer-clients who are relatively more important and more aggressive.
Hypothesis 7 : The moderating effect of client's characteritics on the penalty threat will be more greater when an important and risk-seeking client is involved than a less important and conservative client is involved.
To test the above hypotheses, General Liner Model Procedure(GLM Procedure), more specifically ANOVA and ANCOVA Procedures were proceeded.
Based on the experimental examination research, the results of this study can be suggested as follows:
1) The importance of a taxpayer-client influences the amount of risk that tax preparers are willing to accept when making decisions in the course of working for their clients
2) The preparers were much more willing to adopt an aggressive position with the aggressive client and a conservative position with the conservative client. In other words, when preparers knew their client's preference, they adopted a tax position consistent with the client's preference. This relation was magnified when the client was more important.
3) The threat of preparer penalties also influenced the behavior of the subjects in this experimental examination. The subjects were less likely to select a risky tax position when there was an explicit threat of preparer penalties. Therefore the results suggest that increased preparer penalties may affect practitioners' judgments or decisions in the course of working for their clients.
4) Preparer penalties are more effective when a more conservative client is involved than when a more aggressive client is involved.
5) The interaction between preparer penalties and client importance predicted by hypothesis 4 was not statistically significant, but the shift in the cell means was in the expected direction. The subjects were most conservative in their selections in the high penalty/less important case and made the most aggressive decisions in the low penalty/important case.
6) The interaction between client's importance and aggressiveness predicted by hypothesis 6 was not statistically significant, but the shift in the cell means was in the expected direction. The subjects were most aggressive when an aggressive/more important client is involved and made the most conservative decisions when a conservative/less important client is involved.
7) Also, the interaction among the client's characteristics(aggressiveness, importance) and preparer penalty level was not statistically supported. Nevertheless the shift in the cell means was in the expected direction. For instance, the subjects made the most aggressive decisions in the low penalty/important/aggressive case. In this point, the findings were very similar to the result 5).
8) The results of additional analysis by means of ANCOVA suggested that practice-career factor was the only effective covariate especially in CPAs. It was a very notable attribute that couldn't be found in CTAs, so it was required to adjust the prior results to this findings. Nevertheless, the original results of the main treatment factors were not changed.
The empirical results support a negative relation between experience (practice-career) and aggressiveness for CPAs. In a few word, more-experienced CPAs showed a propensity to select conservative positions, while less-experienced CPAs conducted conversely.
In short, the findings indicate that prospect theory explains preparers' decisions. More generally, it can be said that preparers' behavior is consistent with a cost-benefit approach, too.
When faced with the prospect of contradicting the client(i.e., a possible loss situation to the practitioner), the preparers adopted more aggressive positions with aggressive clients, especially those with more important clients. And, the present study suggests that increased preparer penalties may prove to be effective in improving compliance provided that the sanctions are not idle threats. Therefore, the levels and types of sanctions and probabilities of enforcement that are necessary to deter tax preparers' aggressive tax behavior are the ares for future research.
This research advances our understanding of factors affecting tax compliance and supports prospect theory as a vehicle to explain tax preparers' decision behavior in the course of working for their taxpayer-clients. However, additional studies are needed to validate these conclusions with more different research designs and samples.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• 目次
• Ⅰ. 序論 = 1
• 1. 硏究動機와 目的 = 1
• 2. 硏究範圍 및 方法 = 4
• 3. 論文의 構成 = 7
• Ⅱ. 理論的 背景과 先行硏究 = 9
• 1. 稅務代理人의 역할 = 10
• 2. 稅務代理人에 대한 罰則 = 13
• 3. 先行硏究 및 批判的 檢討 = 18
• 1) 分析을 위한 理論的 틀 = 19
• (1) 期待效用理論 = 20
• (2) 豫想理論 = 23
• 2) 期待效用理論을 利用한 硏究 = 27
• 3) 豫想理論을 利用한 硏究 = 35
• 4) 本 硏究에서 취한 입장 = 42
• Ⅲ. 硏究設計 = 50
• 1. 硏究模型 = 50
• 2. 硏究假設의 設定 = 52
• 3. 標本選擇과 說問紙 設計 = 66
• 1) 標本選擇 = 66
• 2) 說問紙 設計 = 67
• 4. 變數選定과 操作的 定議 = 70
• 1) 從屬變數 = 70
• 2) 獨立變數 = 71
• Ⅳ. 實證結果 및 解釋 = 75
• 1. 基本分析 = 75
• 1) 記述統計量 = 75
• 2) 個別效果의 分析 = 79
• 3) 相互作用效果의 分析 = 86
• 2. 追加分析 = 98
• 1) 主處理要因이 罰則威脅인 경우 = 101
• 2) 主處理要因이 重要性인 경우 = 102
• 3) 主處理要因이 攻擊性인 경우 = 104
• 4) 主處理要因이 重要性과 罰則威脅인 경우 = 105
• 5) 主處理要因이 攻擊性과 罰則威脅인 경우 = 107
• 6) 主處理要因이 重要性과 攻擊性인 경우 = 108
• 7) 主處理要因이 重要性, 攻擊性, 罰則威脅인 경우 = 110
• 3. 結果에 대한 比較解釋 = 112
• Ⅴ. 結論 = 117
• 1. 要約과 結論 = 117
• 2. 硏究의 限界 및 向後 硏究方向 = 121
• 參考文獻 = 125
• 부록 A = 131
• 부록 B = 147
• Abstract = 149