장기적인 조세회피 관리 능력이 기업 가치에 미치는 영향

기은선(Eun Sun Ki),이광숙(Kwang Sook Lee) 한국경영학회 2016 經營學硏究 Vol.45 No.4

코스닥시장 신규상장기업의 이익조정과 종업원의 지분참여

기은선 ( Eun-sun Ki ),이우종 ( Woo-jong Lee ),이종용 ( Jong-ryong Lee ) 한국회계학회 2017 회계저널 Vol.26 No.3

본 연구는 기업이 우리사주조합의 공모주 청약실적을 높이기 위하여 IPO 직전 발생액 이익조정을 시도하는지를 살펴보았다. 2003년부터 2008년까지 기간 중 코스닥시장에 신규 상장한 기업 중 공모금액이 50억 이상인 224개 기업을 대상으로 실증분석을 실시한 결과는 다음과 같다. 첫째, IPO기업들은 IPO 직전에 유의한 양(+)의 재량적 발생액을 보고하였다. 둘째, IPO 직전 연도의 재량적 발생액과 IPO 과정에서 발생한 우리사주조합지분율 변동이 유의한 양의 상관관계를 가지는 것으로 나타났다. 셋째, 우리사주조합지분율변동이 큰 기업들의 공모주 청약경쟁률이 높은 것으로 나타났다. 이러한 분석결과는 경영자들이 이익조정을 통하여 종업원들의 지분참여를 유도하였으며, 결과적으로 지분투자에 관한 외부투자자들의 관심을 유도할 수 있었다는 것을 의미한다. 본 연구는 IPO 기업의 이익조정과 우리사주조합과의 관계를 심도 있게 다루었다는 점에서 의의가 있다. 특히, 기업내부자인 우리사주조합이 IPO 직전에 일어나는 발생액을 이용한 이익조정을 제대로 탐지하지 못하고, 오히려 기업의 미래 전망에 관한 왜곡된 정보를 시장에 전달하여 투자자의 의사결정을 호도할 수 있다는 점은 정책당국에도 시사하는 바가 크다. This paper examines whether managers of IPO firms manipulate earnings upward to achieve high subscription rates of employees and other investors. Based on 224 firm-year observations from KOSDAQ companies listed from 2003 to 2008, we document three main findings: 1) IPO firms exhibit significantly positive discretionary accruals prior to IPOs, 2) employee ownership increases with the magnitude of discretionary accruals prior to IPOs, and 3) the increase in employee ownership is positively associated with subscription rates of other investors. We further find that, different from accruals management, real activities management is not associated with employee subscription rates, suggesting that employees are less likely misled when earnings management is more detectible. This paper contributes to the extant literature by empirically documenting that opportunistic financial reporting of managers (i.e., earnings management) indeed induces share subscriptions of employees. Furthermore, from the positive association between subscription rates of employees and those of investors, we infer that IPO firms gain more attention from outside investors by attracting more employee ownership via earnings management. Our study draws caution to policy makers, regulators, and market participants in the IPO market where information asymmetry is typically a grave issue.

회계감사에서 이익동조성의 유용성과 감사인의 산업전문성

기은선 ( Eun Sun Ki ),권수영 ( Soo Young Kwon ) 한국회계학회 2014 회계학연구 Vol.39 No.4

본 연구는 회사가 동종 산업 내 다른 기업들과 유사한 이익창출과정을 가지고 있을 때, 감사투입시간이 줄고 감사품질이 높아지는지를 살펴본다. 개별 기업의 경영성과는 당해 산업의 경영성과와 밀접한 관련성을 가지기 때문에 감사인은 동종 산업 내 다른 기업과의 성과비교를 통해 회사의 경영성과가 비정상적인지 판단할 수 있다. 만약 회사가 동종 산업 내다른 기업들과 유사한 이익창출과정을 가지고 있으면 감사인이 유사기업과의 비교분석을 통해 보다 손쉽게 중점감사항목을 파악할 수 있기 때문에 불필요한 정보탐색 및 입증감사에 드는 시간낭비를 막을 수 있고, 부정이나 오류를 발견할 가능성 또한 높아질 것으로 예상된다. 한편 감사인이 유사기업 정보의 활용으로부터 얻을 수 있는 이러한 효익의 크기는 감사인의 산업전문성에 따라 차별적일 수 있다. 한 편으로 아무리 좋은 정보가 주어져도 이를 해석하고 분석하는 감사인의 분석능력이 뒷받침되지 않는다면 유사기업 정보가 실질적인 유용성을 가지기 어려울 수 있다. 그러나 다른 한 편으로 산업감사경험이 다소 부족하더라도 감사인이 유사기업 정보를 잘 분석.활용하면 해당 산업에 대한 이해도를 일정 수준으로 높일 수 있기때문에 유사기업 정보가 감사인의 부족한 산업감사경험을 보완하는 역할을 할 수도 있다. 본 연구는 2002년부터 2010년까지 기간 동안 유가증권 및 코스닥시장에 상장된 9,214개의 기업-연도를 표본으로 사용하여 이익동조성이 감사투입시간 및 감사품질에 미치는 영향을 분석하였다. 본 연구에서 이익동조성은 De Franco, Kothari and Verdi(2011)가 제시한 방법을 이용하여 측정하였다. 실증결과, 피감사회사의 이익동조성이 높을수록 감사투입시간이 줄고, 재량적 발생액이 낮아지는 것으로 나타났다. 또한 이익동조성이 감사시간을 낮추는 효과는 감사인의 산업전문성이 높을 때 보다 커지나, 이익동조성이 감사품질을 높이는 효과는 감사인의 산업전문성이 낮을 때 보다 커지는 것으로 나타났다. 본 연구는 최근 들어 감사실무에서 경영자의 의도적인 부정 적발수단으로, 그 중요성이 강조되고 있는 유사기업 정보를 감사인의 투입물(input)인감사투입시간과 산출물(output)인 감사품질과 연결 지어 살펴보고, 그 과정에서 감사인의 산업전문성이 가지는 차별적인 효과를 검증하였다는 점에서 의의가 있다. This study examines whether audit hours decrease and audit quality increases when a client firm has similar earnings generating process with peer firms in the same industry. As an individual firm`s financial performance is closely correlated with other firms operating in the same industry, so auditors can evaluate the client firm`s true performance more accurately by using the industry number. But even within narrowly defined industries, firms within the same industry frequently have different strategies, growth opportunities, and profitability, creating selection problems. One way of dealing with this issue is to focus on only those firms within the industry that have most similar earnings sensitivity for a given economic events. Earnings synchronicity captures the extent to a firm produces similar reported earnings with other firms within the same industry, for a given set of economic events. If a client firm has similar earnings generating process with firms within the same industry, the overall quantity and quality of information available to auditors about the firm is increasing. In this case, auditors can better understand their clients with relatively small efforts and more easily identify high-risk audit areas where special audit consideration may be necessary. As a result, auditors for firms with high earnings synchronicity can save time by reducing redundant information search or replacing other detailed audit testing. Also, the earnings synchronicity helps auditors judge whether there are any unusual performance changes for their clients relative to their competitors. Any unusual changes need further investigation to ensure that the reasons for the change can be fully explained, and to determine what additional tests are required to satisfy the auditor that the reported changes in performance are justified. If a client firm is more economically comparable with peer firms within the same industry, auditors can more easily detect early signs or symptoms that indicate fraud or errors. In this case, such irregularities revealed by the comparison with peer firms alert auditors that extra care and additional detailed tests are likely to be required, consequently increase the probability that auditors will detect material misstatements in the client`s financial statements. Based on these reasoning, we expect that audit hours will decrease, whereas audit quality will increase in a client firm`s earnings synchronicity. Meanwhile, the advantages that auditors can get from peer firms` accounting information may be different by the level of auditors` industry specialization. On the one hand, even a lot of information is available, it is of no use if it`s users do not have an adequate ability to understand and interpret the audit implications contained in it. In this view, the benefits of peer firms` accounting information to the audit areas will be greater when the auditors of firms are industry specialist auditors. On the other hand, industry specialist auditors already have accumulated audit experience and deep understanding about the industry in question, so that the incremental benefits of peer firms` accounting information may be relatively low. However, non-industry specialist auditors lack industry experience or background knowledge, so that they may be highly dependent on peer firms` accounting information in order to identify the preliminary symptoms of misstatement or irregularities. In this view, the incremental benefits of peer firms` accounting information to auditors will be greater when the industry specialization of auditors is relatively low. To test these hypotheses, we use the 9,214 firm-year observations with no missing data on audit hours from the firms listed on Korea Stock Exchange and KOSDAQ for the period 2002~2010. We employ the empirical methodology of De Franco et al. (2011) to estimate firm-year level earnings synchronicity. As in other studies, we use discretionary accruals estimated by Kothari et al. (2005) as the proxy for the audit quality. Empirical results of this study show that audit hours and discretionary accruals are decreasing in earnings synchronicity. These results suggest that when a client firm is more economically comparable with other firms in the same industry, auditors can achieve audit objectives more efficiently and audit quality increases. In addition, the negative relation between earnings synchronicity and audit hours is noticeable when firms are audited bynon-industry specialist auditors, whereas the negative relation between earnings synchronicity and audit hours is noticeable when firms are audited by industry specialist auditors. Overall, the results of this study suggest that earnings synchronicity affects auditors` input and output, but the effects are differential by auditor`s industry specialization.

회계이익과 과세소득의 일치가 기업의 조세회피를 줄이는가? : 순응적 조세회피와 비순응적 조세회피에 관한 분석

기은선(Eun-Sun Ki),김효은(Hyoeun Kim) 강원대학교 경영경제연구소 2022 Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Vol.13 No.1

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of book-tax conformity on conforming tax avoidance and non-conforming tax avoidance. Design/methodology/approach - This study uses financial data from 1996 to 2019 of 34 countries. We regress conforming or non-conforming tax avoidance on book-tax conformity. We use the book-tax conformity measure developed by Atwood et al. (2010), the non-conforming tax avoidance measure developed by Desai and Dharmapala (2006), and the conforming tax avoidance measure developed by Badertscher et al. (2019). Findings First, book-tax conformity has a significant positive relationship with non-conforming tax avoidance. Second, book-tax conformity is not statistically related to conforming tax avoidance. Research implications or Originality While prior research focuses on the effect of book-tax conformity on earnings quality, we examine on the effect on tax avoidance. Furthermore, this study is expected to provide important policy implications regarding the types of tax avoidance strategies that tax authorities should pay attention to. Our results imply that tax authorities in countries with high book-tax conformity should pay more attention to non-conforming tax avoidance than to conforming tax avoidance.

재무제표의 비교가능성과 피감기업 감사복잡성 상호작용이 감사노력에 미치는 영향

기은선(제1저자) ( Eun Sun Ki ),곽수근(교신저자) ( Su Keun Kwak ),안혜진(공동저자) ( Hyejin Ahn ) 한국회계학회 2015 회계학연구 Vol.40 No.3

재무제표 사이의 비교가능성(financial statement comparability)이 높다면 재무제표의 이용자가 서로 다른 기업을 손쉽게 비교할 수 있다. 따라서 정보불균형 수준이 감소하고, 그 결과 재무제표 정보를 이용한 의사결정의 수준이 향상된다. 따라서 회계감사를 수행하는 감사인도 비교가능성이 높은 기업에 대해서는 감사노력을 덜 투입하게 된+H10다. 본 연구에서는 이 분야의 선행연구들을 더욱 확장하여, 복잡성(complexity)이 큰 피감기업을 감사할 경우 비교가능성이 감사노력 수준에 어떤 영향을 미치는지를 실증적으로 분석하였다. 피감기업이 감사하기가 복잡한 경우 감사인은 일정한 감사품질을 유지하기 위해 비교가능성이 높은 피감기업이라고 하더라도 상대적으로 감사노력을 감소시키지 않을 가능성이 높다. 또는 그 반대로 비교가능성이 높다면 복잡한 기업이라도 감사하기가 용이하므로 감사노력이 감소할 수도 있다. 2002년부터 2012년까지 자료를 사용한 실증분석 결과는 전자의 예측을 지지한다. 비교가능성은 감사노력과 유의적인 음(-)의 관계를, 복잡성은 양(+)의 관계를 가지고 있었으며, 비교가능성과 복잡성의 상호작용 변수는 감사노력과 유의적인 양(+)의 관련성을 가지고 있었다. 이 발견은 감사인의 행동에 대해 여러 중요한 시사점을 제공해 준다. This study investigates the effect of the interaction between financial statement comparability and complexity of client firms on the effort level that auditors put into the client during the audit process. The accounting system can be defined as a mapping of underlying economic events to financial statements. Two firms are regarded as having similar accounting systems if they produce comparable financial statements given the same set of economic events (DeFranco et al. 2011; Barth et al. 2012). When financial statements are comparable, users of the information can use it and understand the economic substances underlying the statements. It is because the comparability enable the users to compare the information contained in the statements more easily with those of other firms. These predictions imply that information asymmetry and uncertainty decrease as a result of more comparable information (DeFranco et al. 2011). Prior studies on the financial statement comparability generally document the findings which are consistent with these predictions. For example, DeFranco et al. (2011) report that accuracy of earnings forecasts issued by financial analysts is positively associated with the comparability of the firm, while the dispersion of the forecasts is negatively associated with the comparability. Besides, DeFranco et al.``s (2011) study is monumental in that it develops an empirical way to measure the comparability empirically. Subsequent studies start to apply the measure in various settings. For example, Campbell and Yeung (2012) document that the detrimental impact of an industry peer``s restatement announcement on the stock price increases with the comparability. Choi et al. (2013) report that investors are better able to predict future earnings of firms with comparable financial statements and use the predictions in setting current stock prices. As a result, the magnitude of future earnings coefficient is positively related to the comparability. There are other lines of research that demonstrates the effect of comparability (e.g., DeFond et al. 2011; Fang et al. 2012; Chen et al. 2013; Kim et al. 2013). Ki and Kwon (2014) move the focus of the research on comparability to the auditing area. They argue that auditors can also get the benefits from comparable financial statement information and thus audit the client firms with comparable financial statements more easily. As a result, they find that auditor``s effort level (measured by audit hours) that auditors exert during the audit process decreases for more comparable firms. This study extends the work of Ki and Kwon (2014) and look into the interaction between comparability and complexity of the client firms. It is more time-consuming to audit complex clients (Simunic 1980) and thus auditors need to exert greater level of audit effort to audit complex clients. This study expects that the negative effect of the comparability on audit effort would be attenuated (pronounced) for more complex clients, suggesting that there exists a positive (negative) association between audit effort and the interaction between comparability and complexity of the clients. If auditors try to maintain a similar quality of audit service and thus exert similar level of audit effort for complex clients regardless of the comparability of the clients, the positive association is expected. In contrast, if auditors gain benefits from comparability and are able to reduce audit efforts for even complex clients, the negative association is expected. We perform empirical analyses with 13,275 observations collected over the period from 2002 to 2012. All the non-financial firms, listed in Korean stock market, with available samples are used in the analyses. Because there are several empirical proxies (variables) that represent for the complexity of client firms, we perform factor analysis and derive two common factors related to the complexity. The empirical results support the predictions. First, consistent with Ki and Kwon (2014), financial statement comparabil is negatively associated with audit effort while client complexity is positively associated with the audit effort, suggesting that our sample characteristics are not different from those used in prior studies. Second, the interaction between comparability and complexity is positively associated with audit effort, suggesting that auditors exert a similar level of effort even for complex clients. Third, when we use original variables (not the two factors derived from factor analysis) representing for client complexity (i.e., number of business segments, number of subsidiaries, the ratio of inventory and receivables out of total assets, and the proportion of foreign sales out of total sales), we find that number of subsidiaries are strongly related to thedocumented findings, while the proportion of the foreign operation is also weakly related to the finding. In contrast, we fail to find that the ratio of inventory and receivable is negatively related to the audit effort. These findings provide important implications on the process of audit. We hope future studies look into related issue further.

재무제표의 비교가능성이 경영자예측정보에 대한 재무분석가의 예측수정에 미치는 영향

기은선(Eun Sun Ki),권수영(Soo Young Kwon) 한국경영학회 2014 經營學硏究 Vol.43 No.5

기업의 지리적 입지와 조세회피

기은선(Eun-Sun Ki),정광화(Kwang-Hwa Jeong) 한국조세연구포럼 2017 조세연구 Vol.17 No.3

본 연구는 기업의 지리적 입지와 조세회피 간 관계를 살펴본다. 국세청은 매년 각 지방국세청의 법인세무조사율을 국세통계연보를 통해 공시하고 있다. 이러한 공시자료는 기업경영자가 조세회피의 기대비용을 추정하는 중요한 판단근거로서 사용될 가능성이 있다. 자신이 입지한 지역 내 관할 지방국세청이 높은 법인세무조사율을 보일 때 기업의 경영자는 세무조사에서 적출당할 가능성이 증가하기 때문에 조세회피의 기대비용을 높게 평가할 것이다. 따라서 지방국세청의 법인세무조사율이 높을수록 관할지역 내 소재기업의 조세회피가 줄어들 것으로 예상된다. 한편 6개 지방국세청 중 서울지방국세청은 법인세무조사율이 가장 높다. 또한 서울소재기업은 수도권소재기업에 대한 조세감면제한으로 인하여 활용 가능한 공제감면 수단에 제한이 있다. 이 때문에 서울소재기업은 타 지역 소재기업에 비하여 조세회피수준이 낮을 것으로 예상된다. 2006년부터 2014년까지 7,840개의 기업-연도 자료를 이용하여 분석한 결과, 법인세무조사율과 조세회피변수 간 유의한 음(-)의 관계가 관찰되었다. 또한 서울소재기업이 타 지역소재기업에 비하여 조세회피수준이 낮았다. 본 연구는 그 동안의 연구에서 다루어진 적이 없는 지역입지와 조세회피 간 관계를 고찰함으로써 지역 간 균형 있는 세원관리 노력의 필요성에 관해 중요한 시사점을 제시하였다는 점에서 의의가 있다. This study investigates the association between corporate geographic location and tax avoidance. The Internal Revenue Service annually publishes the corporate tax audit rate of each local tax office through the National Statistical Yearbook. These disclosure data are likely to be used as an important basis for management "s estimation of expected costs of tax avoidance. When local tax authorities in their local jurisdictions show a high corporate tax audit rate, management will assess the expected cost of tax avoidance high since the tax audit likelihood increases. Thus, we expect that firms located in areas where the tax audit rate of the local tax office is high will have a low level of tax avoidance. Meanwhile, among the six local tax offices, the Seoul Regional Tax Office has the highest rate of corporate tax audit. In addition, companies located in Seoul have limitations on the means of tax exemption. In order to promote the local distribution of companies and population, the tax law excludes companies in the metropolitan area from various tax exemptions. As a result, companies in Seoul are expected to have a lower tax avoidance level than companies in other regions. To examine these arguments, we used 7,840 firm-year data listed on KOSDAQ and KOSPI from 2006 to 2014. Our main findings are as follows. First, we corporate audit tax rate is negatively associated with corporate tax avoidance. Second, the firms in Seoul lower tax avoidance levels than firms in other regions. This study suggests policy implications on the importance of balanced tax revenue management effort by considering the relation between physical location of the company and tax avoidance, which have not been covered in the previous study.

아로니아(Aronia melancocarpa) 유래 안토시아닌 색소의 안정성

황은선(Eun-Sun Hwang),기경남(Kyong-Nam Ki) 한국식품과학회 2013 한국식품과학회지 Vol.45 No.4

아로니아 유래 안토시아닌 색소의 pH, 온도, 저장기간, 빛, 당 및 유기산에 대한 안정성을 조사하였다. 아로니아 색소는 pH 3.0에서 가장 안정하고 높은 흡수스펙트럼을 나타냈고 pH 4.0-7.0으로 증가함에 따라 색소의 강도가 감소하였다. 아로니아 색소는 고온에서 장시간 가열할수록 색소의 안정성은 감소하는 경향을 나타냈으며 암실보다는 일광에 노출하였을 때 색소의 파괴가 급격히 나타났다. 아로니아 색소는 냉동 온도에서 저장한 경우에는 저장기간이 경과하여도 비교적 안정하였으나 냉장온도에서는 저장기간이 경과함에 따라 아로니아 색소가 감소하는 경향을 보였다. 아로니아 색소에 당을 첨가한 경우 색소의 강도가 전반적으로 감소하였고, 0.1M 당을 첨가시 색소의 강도는 maltose, galactose, sucrose, glucose 및 fructose 순으로 낮은 색소의 잔존율을 보였다. 아로니아 색소는 50 mM 농도의 유기산의 존재하에서 가장 안정하였으며 저장기간이 길어짐에 따라 첨가한 모든 유기산에서 색소의 강도가 감소하는 경향을 나타냈다. 이상의 결과는 향후 아로니아를 활용한 가공식품 및 천연 식품색소 개발을 위한 기초 자료로 활용할 수 있을 것으로 사료된다. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of pH, temperature, light, sugars, and organic acids on the stability of anthocyanin pigments extracted from aronia (Aroniamelanocarpa). Pigments from aronia were most stable at pH 3.0, with maximal absorbance at 514 nm. High temperatures and prolonged heating substantially reduced anthocyanin contents. Anthocyanin levels were as low as approximately 21.70 and 79.63% of normal levels after 300 min of heating at 30 and 100oC, respectively. All of the sugars tested decreased the abundance of aronia pigments, with the levels highest in the presence of maltose, and decreasing progressively in the presence of galactose, sucrose, glucose, and fructose. Among the organic acids tested, citric acid was the most effective in stabilizing the aronia pigment, followed by tartaric acid, malic acid, formic acid, and ascorbic acid. These results provide useful reference data for efforts to use pigments from aronia in processed foods or for developing natural food colorants.

회계이익과 과세소득의 차이가 회사채 신용등급에 미치는 효과에 대한 재검토 및 새로운 증거

박종일 ( Jong Il Park ),기은선 ( Eun Sun Ki ),권수영 ( Soo Young Kwon ) 한국회계학회 2014 회계학연구 Vol.39 No.3

본 연구는 회계이익과 과세소득의 차이( BTD)가 회사채 신용등급( RATING)에 미치는 영향을 분석하였다. 본 연구는 이전 연구들의 주장과 같이 경영자의 기회주의적 이익조정으로 보고이익이 상향조정되면 회계이익이 과세소득보다 커질 수 있어 이익의 질은 낮아질 것으로 보고, 이런 경우 신용평가기관이 신용등급을 더 낮출 것으로 기대했다. 실증분석기간은 2001년부터 2010년까지 총 10년간이고, 총 1,929개 기업/연 자료가 분석에 이용되었다. 실증결과는 다음과 같다. 첫째, 소수의 순위등급변수(fractional ranks variable)로 측정한 BTD변수가 기존 연속변수의 경우보다 BTD와 RATING간에 음(-)의 관련성을 보다 잘 나타내 주는 것으로 나타났다. 둘째, BTD를 더미변수로 측정한 경우에도 두 변수 간에 음(-)의 관련성이 나타났다. 이는 BTD값이 음(-)보다 양(+)인 경우를 신용평가기관은 정보위험이 더 높다고 평가함을 의미한다. 셋째, 두 변수간 음(-)의 관계는 시장별로 차이를 보였는데, 특히 KOSDAQ보다 KOSPI시장에서 더 뚜렷한 결과로 나타났다. 또한 KOSPI 표본에서 BTD는 재량적 발생액( DA) 이상의 정보가치를 제공하지만, KOSDAQ 표본에서는 이와 반대의 결과를 보였다. 넷째, 이상의 결과들은 주로 세전이익이 음(-)인 경우보다 양(+)인 표본의 결과였다. 다섯째, 이상의 결과들의 경우 이익의 질( DA)에 따라 표본을 나누어 분석하면 두 변수 간 유의한 음(-)의 관계는 이익의 질이 낮은 양(+)의 DA표본에서, 또한 낮은 품질의 감사인(non-Big 4) 표본에서 더 뚜렷한 결과를 보였다. 이는 이익의 질이나 감사품질이 낮은 경우 BTD정보는 신용평가기관의 신용등급에 주로 반영된다는 발견이다. 이상의 연구결과를 종합하면 이전 연구들에서 나타난 BTD와 RATING간의 평균적인 유의한음(-)의 결과는 BTD측정에서 변수정의와 표본구성의 방법에 따라, 그리고 이익의 질, 감사품질 및 시장특성에 따라서도 연구결과에 차이가 있음을 본 연구는 보여주었다는 점에 의미가 있다. 이상과 같은 본 연구의 실증적 증거는 BTD관련연구에 새로운 증거로서 추가적인 공헌을 할 것으로 기대된다. Prior research suggests that differences between book and taxable incomes reflect firms` underlying economic fundamentals and their opportunistic earnings management activities. A number of recent studies investigate whether differences between book income and taxable income are a source of information useful to financial report users, and several key findings have emerged, including: book-tax differences ( BTDs) are useful in detecting certain types of earnings and tax management (e.g., Phillips at el. 2003); large magnitude positive and negative BTDs reflect differences in earnings persistence (Hanlon 2005); the ratio of taxable income to book income is useful in predicting earnings growth and explaining security returns (Lev and Nissim 2004); and taxable income provides information about a firm`s performance and its value incremental to book income, and vice versa (Hanlon et al. 2008). Overall, previous research suggests that BTDs arises (i) from differences in book and tax reporting requirements that reflect aspects of firms` underlying fundamentals not reflected in either income measure by itself, and (ii) from firms` earnings and tax management activities. That is, firm value depends on both financial reporting and tax reporting decisions, and BTDs combine the effects of these decisions. Thus, we note that with regard to the quality of accounting information, BTDs can reflect firms` earnings management as well as their tax management strategies. Therefore, we extend this literature by investigating the relation between BTDs and credit ratings to gain a deeper understanding of the information reflected in the differences between these two earnings measures and its impact on rating agencies. Meanwhile, credit ratings are determined by rating agencies` assessments of the probability distribution of future cash flows to bondholders, which in turn, depends on the future cash flows to the firm. A firm`s creditworthiness is determined by assessing the likelihood that its future cash flows will be sufficient to cover debt service costs and principal payments. A credit rating implications include signaling, maintaining relationships with third parties such as suppliers and customers, and maintaining firms` credit ratings in line with competitors. A credit rating represents a signal of overall quality in the capital market. So, rating agencies may face fewer incentives to detect earnings management by issuers. Hence, this study investigates the effects of firms` BTDs on bond`s credit ratings using firms listed on KOSPI and KOSDAQ. Especially, we are trying to differentiate this study from previous studies by focusing on two aspects. One is to examine how different measures of BTDs (measured in various way) affect the relation between BTDs and credit ratings. The other is to examine whether this relation between two variables varies with the methods for sampling partition, which may represent a conditional situation. As these issues have not been well-studied, this paper is expected to give additional information to the emerging literatures on the BTDs. As in the previous studies, we anticipate that firms would report higher pre-tax book income than taxable income when managers manipulate earnings upward. In this case, credit analysts may interpret positive BTDs (i.e. where book income is more than taxable income) as a signal of decreased earnings quality, which results in less favorable credit ratings. To test this hypothesis, we use credit ratings as a dependent variable and measure of BTDs, a variable of interest, following Jeon and Kim (2008). We use 1,929 firm-year observations for the period of 2001-2010. The empirical results are as follows. First, in the tests using clustering-adjusted ordered probit regression to consider ranked order attribute of credit ratings, the negative relation between BTDs and credit ratings exhibits more evidently when we measure BTDs based on the fractional ranking of the values of variables rather than continuous values. Second, this negative relation does not change where measuring BTDs as a indicator variable. This result suggests that credit analysts consider firms with positive BTDs have higher credit risk than firms with negative BTDs. Third, these findings show a difference across the listed market. Specifically, the negative relation between BTDs and credit ratings is more pronounced for KOSPI firms than for KOSDAQ firms. Also, for KOSPI firms it is revealed that BTDs provide incremental information content beyond discretionary accruals, while we get the opposite result from KOSDAQ firms. Fourth, the above results are mostly observed in firms with positive taxable income, not in firms with negative taxable income. Fifth, when we partition full sample into sub-samples based on earnings quality or audit quality, the negative relation between two variables are more noticeable for firms with positive discretionary accruals or for firms audited by non-BIG4 auditors. These results mean that credit analysts negatively much more reflect BTDs into the bond`s credit ratings for firms with low earnings quality or low audit quality. Finally, in the additional tests, we divide the samples into deciles and examine in which decile the negative relation between two variables. We find that the negative relation exhibits just one decile of many, but also only firms from the lowest negative BTDs, irrespective of listed market. The findings of this study have contributions in that they suggest the negative relation between BTDs and credit ratings may be affected by measures of BTDs, sample partition, earnings quality, audit quality and market characteristics, while previous studies focus on investigating the relation between two variables on average. Above empirical results of this study are expected to make additional contribution to studies on the BTDs as a new evidence. Therefore, understanding the credit ratings consequences of BTDs is important and interesting in its own merit. Our findings will thus be of interest to academicians as well as managers, credit rating agencies, bondholders, and regulators alike.

발생액의 질이 미래이익에 대한 주가 정보성에 미치는 영향

권수영(Soo Young Kwon),기은선(Eun Sun Ki),서호준(Ho Jun Seo) 한국경영학회 2012 經營學硏究 Vol.41 No.1

In this paper we examine the association between accruals quality and the informativeness of stock prices. We measure accruals quality by the standard deviation of residuals of current accruals which were not converted into operating cash flows in the prior period, current period and the following period. We measure stock price informativeness of future earnings by the future earnings response coefficient (FERC), which is the association between current period stock returns and future earnings. Accruals quality captures the information risk about future cash flows and, as a result, future earnings. There are prior studies which documented the evidence that accruals quality was priced by investors and poor accruals quality is associated with high cost of capital (Francis et al., 2005; Chen, Dhaliwal and Trombley, 2008; Kim and Qi, 2010). Kim and Qi (2010) also report that accounting quality and stock returns of firms with poor accruals quality are more vulnerable to future market condition changes. These results lead to the expectation that stock price would be more informative about future earnings for firms with high accruals quality due to the lower information risk. We focus on the accrual component of earnings for two reasons. First, the accrual component of earnings is subject to greater uncertainty than is the cash flow component. Second, accruals quality is the measure of information risk associated with a key accounting number- earnings since accruals quality tells investors about the mapping of accounting earnings into cash flows. We test that a firm`s accruals quality can bring the future forward by revealing information in the current period that changes expectations about future earnings. We also investigate whether the pricing of accruals quality differs depending on the source of accruals quality. Innate accruals quality is driven by the firm`s business model and operating environment, while discretionary accruals quality is subject to management interventions. Since discretionary accrual choices reflect both opportunism and performance measurement, we predict distinct price informativeness, i.e., lower average price informativeness for discretionary accruals quality than for innate accruals quality. We analyze all the firms listed on Korea Stock Exchange and KOSDAQ for the period 1997~2007. We find that there is a significantly positive relation between a firm`s accruals quality and the amount of future earnings news reflected in the current annual return. Higher accruals qualities are associated with a greater future ERC. We also find that both innate accruals and discretionary accruals are positively related to the amount of future earnings news reflected in current returns. Furthermore, there was significant difference between innate accruals and discretionary accruals in the magnitude of FERC. It appears that the acrruals quality matters, not the source of accruals. Our findings remain significant after controlling for factors known to influence the earnings response coefficient in a simple regression of returns on current earnings, namely, size, presence of loss, growth, and earnings volatility. This paper has several contributions to the accounting literature. First, we document that high accruals quality allows investors to better predict future earnings. This is adds to the accruals literature where prior studies focused on accruals anomaly, information risk, or cost of capital. Second, this study shows that the usefulness of accruals in predicting future cash flows varies with the accruals quality, while prior studies only show that accruals provide useful information about future cash flows (Dechow, 1994; Dechow et al., 1998; Barth et al., 2001). Third, this study is the first attempt to examine whether investors take into information risk imbedded in account accruals quality and utilize such knowledge in their investments in anticipation of future earnings. We expect more studies by utilizing the noti