Information from the abstract
Background and Objectives: Corporate tax planning is a strategic decision with direct consequences for after-tax cash flows, investment capacity, and equity market valuation. This study examines three interrelated questions: (1) whether composite corporate governance (CG) scores predict tax planning intensity among listed companies; (2) whether tax planning predicts firm performance; and (3) whether CG moderates the tax planning–firm performance relationship. The study focuses on non-financial companies listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) during 2015–2024, a period spanning COVID-19 disruption, monetary-policy volatility, and sustained CG reforms under the IOD assessment system. Methods: An unbalanced panel of 2,702 firm-year observations from 349 non-financial SET-listed companies is analyzed using two-way fixed effects regression with firm-clustered standard errors. Two tax planning proxies—effective tax rate (ETR) and book-tax differences (BTD)—are deployed simultaneously. Five robustness checks probe the stability of all findings: lagged CG (R1), lagged BTD (R2), full-sample expansion with an unrated-firm dummy (R3), industry-adjusted ROA (R4), and two-way clustered standard errors (R5). Results: Three principal findings emerge. First, composite CG scores (IOD star-rating; mean = 4.21, SD = 0.78, range 3–5 stars) exhibit no statistically significant association with either ETR or BTD—consistent with institutional decoupling. Second, BTD is a robust positive predictor of ROA (β = 0.277, SE = 0.042, p < .001) and Tobin's Q (β = 0.971, SE = 0.409, p = .018), while ETR is non-significant across all specifications—a proxy-sensitivity finding with direct methodological implications for emerging-market research. Third, CG does not moderate the tax planning–performance relationship. All findings survive five robustness checks. Application of this study: For regulators (SEC/SET/IOD), the findings argue for integrating tax-specific governance criteria—board-level tax policy, audit committee tax expertise, and GRI Standard 207 disclosures—into CG assessments. Institutional investors should complement ETR with BTD in valuation frameworks. Corporate boards should formalize tax risk policies at board level to bridge the gap between formal CG compliance and substantive tax governance. Conclusions: Composite CG scores, as currently structured under Thailand's voluntary IOD assessment system, do not discipline corporate tax behavior—evidencing institutional decoupling attributable to score compression, voluntary-participation selection bias, and operational delegation of tax decisions below board level. BTD outperforms ETR as a tax planning proxy in this emerging-market setting. Thai equity investors interpret high BTD as a managerial capability signal rather than an opacity risk, consistent with the value creation hypothesis.
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Related topics: Corporate Taxation and Avoidance · Corporate Finance and Governance · Corporate Governance and Financial Management
Thai researcher and institutional participation
Somboon Amnartcharoensuk · Montree Socatiyanurak · National Institute of Development Administration
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