企业税收筹划功效：基于补偿的激励作用【外文翻译】.doc

1、 外文翻译 原文 Corporate Tax-Planning Effectiveness: The Role of Compensation-Based Incentives Material Source: The Accounting Review, 2003(3) Author:John D. Phillips ABSTRACT This study investigates whether compensating chief executive officers and business-unit managers using after-tax accounting-based

2、performance measures leads to lower effective tax rates, the empirical surrogate used for tax-planning effectiveness. Utilizing proprietary compensation data obtained in a survey of corporate executives, the relation between effective tax rates and after-tax performance measures is modeled and estim

3、ated using a two-step approach that corrects for the endogeneity bias associated with firms decisions to compensate managers on a pre- versus after-tax basis. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that compensating business-unit managers, but not chief executive officers, on an after-tax ba

4、sis leads to lower effective tax rates. INTRODUCTION Effective tax planning, defined by Scholes et al.(2002)as tax planning that maximizes the firms expected discounted after-tax cash flows, requires managers to consider their decisions after-tax consequences. In this paper, I investigate whether af

5、ter-tax accounting-based performance measures lead to lower effective tax rates (ETRs), my empirical surrogate for tax planning effectiveness. The ETR, an income-statement-based outcome measure calculated as the ratio of total income tax expense to pre-tax income, generally measures the effectivenes

6、s of tax reduction strategies that lead to higher after-tax income. A lower ETR, however, can only proxy for tax savings and does not always imply that after-tax income and/or cash flows have been maximized. Despite this limitation, the ETR has been used to measure the effectiveness of spending on t

7、he tax function (Mills et al.1998) and corporate tax department performance (Douglas et al.1996). Also, lowering the ETR is frequently cited as a way to increase earnings (e.g., Ziegler 1997) and increase share price (e.g., Mintz 1999; Swenson 1999). Accounting research has addressed the relation be

8、tween accounting-based compensation and managers actions (e.g., Larcker 1983;Healy 1985;Wallace 1997).This paper is the first to address whether after-tax accounting-based performance measures motivate managers to take actions that help lower their firms ETRs and does so at both the chief executive

9、officer(CEO)and business-unit(BU)manager levels. Prior after-tax performance measure research has focused only on the determinants of compensating CEOs using preversus after-tax earnings (e.g., Newman 1989; Cames and Guffey 2000; Atwood et al.1998;Dhaliwal et al.2000)and provides no evidence concern

10、ing after-tax compensations effectiveness in lowering a firms tax liability. Extending this investigation to the BU level is motivated out of the apparent conflict between arguments that taxes should be allocated to BUs for incentive compensation purposes (e.g., McLemore 1997)with empirical observat

11、ions that a majority of firms do not do so(e.g., Douglas et al.1996).The current investigation provides evidence concerning the incremental effectiveness of explicitly motivating CEOs and BU managers to incorporate tax consequences into their operating and investment decisions. A common issue in cro

12、ss-sectional studies that attempt to link a particular management accounting choice to an outcome measure is that all sample firms may be optimizing with respect to the choice being investigated (Ittner and Larcker 2001).Without addressing the endogeneity of a firms choice, it is difficult to provid

13、e evidence consistent with this choice leading to an improved outcome. To address this issue, the relation between ETRs and CEO and BU-manager after-tax performance measures is estimated using a two-step approach that helps correct for the potential endogeneity bias associated with these two choice

14、variables. As a first step in implementing this approach, the Antle and Demski(1988) controllability principle is used to model a firms decisions to adopt after-tax CEO and BU-manager performance measures. To include a particular measure in a managers compensation contract, this principle requires t

15、hat the expected benefits from holding a manager responsible for a measure must be greater than the additional wage that must be paid to compensate the manager for the resulting additional risk and effort. Accordingly, an after-tax performance measure should be used as a contracting variable in a ma

16、nagers incentive compensation contract only if the managers involvement in tax-planning efforts leads to a difference between pre-tax and after-tax accounting results,which is generally reflected in the ETR. Consistent with prior research, the pre-versus after-tax CEO and BU-manager selection models

17、 include variables that control for a firms tax-planning opportunities because the presence of such opportunities reflect the extent to which a managers actions can be expected to lower the ETR. Even if a managers efforts are expected to lead to a lower ETR,a firm will use an after-tax performance m

18、easure only if the expected benefits exceed the expected costs of doing so. An after-tax performance measure is expected to lead to a lower ETR because it motivates the managers increased cooperation with tax professionals to help identify, develop, and execute tax-planning strategies. McLemore(1997

19、,1)cites Hewlett Packards tax director to support the need for BU-manager involvement in tax-planning efforts: Tax planning is only as good as being involved in the early stages of such things as business planning, strategic planning, and merger and acquisition work.Your tax department has to be rep

20、resented at the table when those decisions are made. The evolving model for the future is the tight integration of tax people with business unit planning. Costs associated with using after-tax performance measures include the additional wage that must be paid to compensate the manager for the increa

21、sed risk due to potential tax law changes and the increased effort that results from including income tax expense in the compensation contract. Other potential costs associated with after-tax compensation include the administrative cost of allocating tax expense to a firms BUs, increased tax examina

22、tion costs, and increased tax authority scrutiny. Contrary to measuring after-tax compensations benefits via observed ETRs, there are no clear empirical surrogates for after-tax performance measures costs. This study thus focuses on the realized benefits of compensating managers on an after-tax basi

23、s but does not provide evidence of the associated costs magnitude. Proprietary data obtained in a survey of corporate executives are used to construct certain test variables, including those indicating whether CEOs and BU managers are compensated using after-tax accounting-based performance measures

24、. Publicly available data are used to construct ETRs and other test variables. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that compensating BU managers, but not CEOs, on an after-tax basis leads to lower ETRs, resulting in an estimated median tax savings of$13.3 million annually. Sensitivity tes

25、ts performed on a subsample of firms with high simulated MTRs (Graham 1996) provide further evidence that low-MTR firms potential ETR-lowering actions that could have ambiguous effects on cash flows and after-tax profits are not driving this result. Further sensitivity tests help rule out the propor

26、tion of tax function outsourcing as an alternative explanation for the statistically and economically significant negative relation between after-tax BU-manager compensation and ETRs. The results contribute to the accounting-based compensation literature by linking after-tax accounting-based perform

27、ance measures to BU-manager involvement that is incrementally effective in lowering firms ETRs. Consistent with Guidry et al. (1999)who document bonus-induced earnings management at the BU level, this finding provides additional insight into the effect that BU-manager accounting-based incentives hav

28、e on managers actions. Also, the estimated explicit tax savings resulting from after-tax performance measures provide corporate decision makers with information relevant to the design of BU-manager incentive compensation plans. The paper proceeds as follows. The next section sets forth the hypothese

29、s tested in this study. Section III outlines the empirical models and estimation procedures used in testing these hypotheses. Section IV provides a discussion of the data and sample, including a brief overview of the survey used to obtain proprietary compensation data. Results are presented in Secti

30、on V. The final section provides the conclusion and a discussion of the studys limitations. CONCLUSION This study investigates the relation between firms effective tax rates (ETRs) and after-tax CEO and BU-manager accounting-based performance measures. The evidence is consistent with after-tax BU-ma

31、nager performance measures leading to lower ETRs and economically significant tax benefits. This result highlights the importance of BU-manager involvement in tax-planning efforts that lower firms ETRs and suggests that explicit accounting-based incentives are incrementally effective in promoting su

32、ch efforts. The evidence does not support the hypothesis that after-tax CEO performance measures lead to lower ETRs. These results suggest that other incentives such as job retention are sufficient to motivate CEOs to focus on after-tax results, whereas annual after-tax accounting-based bonuses prov

33、ide incremental motivation only for BU managers to consider their decisions tax consequences. After-tax CEO performance measures could have an indirect negative effect on ETRs, however, because CEOs compensated after-tax are more likely to compensate their BU managers on an after-tax basis. The resu

34、lts contribute to our overall understanding of the role that accounting-based incentive compensation plays in motivating managers efforts. In particular, this finding adds to prior evidence (Guidry et al.1999) that BU managers respond to unit-based incentives. This study also identifies the pre-vers

35、us after-tax nature of BU-manager compensation as a factor in firms propensities to engage in tax-planning efforts. This evidence should assist future researchers in their investigations of effective tax planning strategies. Finally, the estimate of potential explicit tax benefits associated with co

36、mpensating BU managers on an after-tax basis should be useful to corporate decision makers in their design of incentive compensation plans. Interpretation of the results is subject to the following limitations. First, it is possible that for those firms not currently using an after-tax BU-manager pe

37、rformance measure, the associated costs of doing so may be greater than its expected benefits. Accordingly, the results do not lead to an inference that all firms should adopt this practice. Second, the financial-statement-based ETR does not reflect implicit taxes, defined as the decrease in pre-tax

38、 returns associated with tax-advantaged investments (Scholes et al.2002).Tax-planning strategies that lower the ETR could also result in implicit taxes, reducing, at least in part, the explicit tax benefits obtained from using after-tax BU-manager compensation. 译文 企业税收筹划功效： 基于补偿的激励作用 资料来源： 会计评论， 200

39、3(3) 作者： John D. Phillips 本文研究是否 用税后会计补偿首席执行官和业务部门经理能降低有效 率。本文 利用企业主管通过调查获得的专有的补偿数据，与实际税率和税后绩效指标的关系进行建模和估计，使用两个步骤的方法更正与企业管理人员决定有关的内在的补偿前后的计税基础。模型结果与假设一致，在税后基础上补偿业务部门经理，而不是首席执行官，将导致较低的有效税率。 有效的税收筹划，由 Scholes 等（ 2002）定义。税收筹 划，为了使公司的预期贴现税后现金流量达到最大化，要求管理人员考虑他们的税后结果。在本文中，我调查是否税后会计为基础的绩效措施，导致较低的实际税率，我对税收筹

40、划有效性进行了实证研究。实际税率，是基于损益表的结果按照一定的比率计算税前收入中的所得税费用，一般有效的节税措施会导致较高的税后收入。较低的实际税率只能说明节省税款，但 并不总是意味着税后收入或现金流量最大化。 尽管有这样的局限性，实际税率一直被用来衡量税收功能的有效性（ Mills等 ， 1998）和企业税务部门的表现（ Douglas 等 ， 1996）。此外，降低实 际税率是经常用来增加收入（ Ziegler， 1997），提高股价（ Mintz， 1999； Swenson 1999）的一种方式。 会计研究已经讨论了会计为基础的补偿与经理行为之间的关系 （ Larcker，1983；

41、Healy， 1985； Wallace， 1997）。本文首先讨论是否税后会计为基础的绩效措施激励经理人员采取行动来帮助降低企业的实际税率并同时考虑了首席执行官和 业务部门经理。 在此之前税后绩效指标的研究只集中于 税后收入补偿首席执行官使用 的决策（ Newman， 1989； Cames 和 Guffey， 2000； Atwood 等 ，1998； Dahlia 等 ， 2000），并没有提供有关税后补偿机制降低一个公司的税务负担的证据。本次调查扩展到 业务部门经理的 动机是出于 税收应该分配给激励补偿的目的 的争论（ McLemore， 1997），实证观察的结果是，大多数企业没有这

42、样做（ Douglas 等 ， 1996）。 目前的研究提供的证据有关激励 首席执行官和 业务部门经理把纳 税后果纳入其经营和投资决策的增量效益。 以横截面研究，试图连结一个特定管理会计选择来衡量的结果常见的问题是，所有样本企业可能就被调查的选择优化（ Ittner 和 Larcker， 2001）。 不解决选择公司的内生性，难以提供导致一致结果的证据。 为了解决这个问题，实际税率与 首席执行官以及业务部门经理 税后绩效指标的关系采用两步法，可以帮助改正与这两个选择变量相关的内生性的偏见。 作为实施这一办法的第一步，Antle 和 Demski（ 1988）的可控性原则被用来模拟一个公司的决定

43、采取 首席执行官和业务部门经理 的税后绩效指标。总结经理报酬契约的特别措施，这一原则要求一个经理负责的措施产生的预期收益必须大于额外工资，额外工资是必须支付给赔偿由此产生的额外的风险及花费。因此，只有当经理参与的税收筹划工作 导致了税前和税后会计核算结果并显著反映在实际税率上，税后绩效指标应作为一个经理的激励补偿合同中的承包变量。与以前的研究结果一致， 税后 首席执行官和业务部门经理 模型的选择包括对于一个企业的税收筹划的机会的控制，因为这种机会的存在在某种程度上反映了经理人的行动可以降低预期实际税率。 这篇文章的结构如下。下一部分阐述了在这项研究中测试的假设。第三部分概述了经验模型和估计程序

44、在测试这些假设的使用。第四部分提供了数据和样本，其中包括了用于数据获取的专有赔偿调查的简要概述讨论。结果列于第五章。最后一节提供了一个结论以及该 研究的局限性的讨论。 本文探讨了企业的实际税率和税后 首席执行官和业务部门经理 会计绩效指标的关系。证实了 业务部门经理的税后绩效措施会导致较低的实际利率 和具有经济意义的税收优惠。 这一结果强调了 业务部门经理 参与税收筹划的重要性，降低了企业的实际利率，并建议以会计为基础的激励措施在促进这些方面时逐步有效。本研究结果不支持 首席执行官税后绩效措施会导致较低的实际利率。这些结果表明， 留职等其他奖励可以有效激励 首席执行官关注税后结果，而 每年的税

45、后会计基础奖金只为 业务部门经理考虑纳税结果提供了大量的激励。首席执行官税后绩效措施可能对实际利率有间接的消极影响。 研究结果有助于我们全面了解会计为基础的激励补偿起着激励经理的作用。特别是，这一发现证实了之前 Guidry（ 1999）的 业务部门经理对部门为基础的激励机制负责的观点。这项研究还确定了业务部门经理税后补偿作为企业进行税收筹划的因素。 在这方面的证据应协助未来税务筹划有效性的调查研究。最后，潜在的税收收益的估计与 业务部门经理 补偿的税后基础相联系，应该是在企业的决策者设计他们的激励补偿计划有用的。 对结果的解释是有以下局 限性。首先，对目前尚未使用税后业务部门经理绩效指标的公司，这样做的相关成本可能会比其预期的收益更大。因此，结果不会得出所有的企业都应该采取这种做法的结论。其次，基于财务报表计算的实际税率没有反映其隐含税。税收筹划在降低实际税率的同时可能会导致产生隐含的税，至少会部分减少使用 业务部门经理税后补偿所带来的税收收益。