본 연구는 이연법인세 정보가 경영자의 이익조정을 탐지할 수 있는지를 비상장기업을 대상으로 분석하였다. 특히 본 연구는 이를 알아보기 위하여 이익조정이 의심되는 적자회피 구간 및 이익감소회피 구간과 이연법인세비용 간에 양(＋)의 관계가 있는지를 통해 살펴보았다. 이연법인세 정보가 경영자의 이익조정과 관련성이 있음을 분석한 연구들은 대부분이 상장기업을 대상으로 분석되었다(Phillips et al. 2003；주인기 등 2005；최종서·문승엽 2005). 그러나 비상장기업에서의 이연법인세 정보가 이익조정이 의심되는 구간과 체계적인 관련성이 있는지를 살펴본 연구는 국내외로 전무했다. 상장기업을 대상으로 분석된 선행연구의 주장과 논의가 비상장기업에서도 확장되는지를 알아보기 위하여 본 연구는 이연법인세비용(DTE)과 Burgstahler and Dichev(1997)에서 제시된 적자회피(SPOS1) 및 이익감소회피(SPOS2) 구간과의 관계를 통해 분석하였다. 이연법인세비용은 선행연구의 방법에 따라 측정했고 (Phillips et al. 2003；최종서·문승엽 2005；임태균·정석우 2008；전규안·박종일 2009), 적자회피와 이익감소회피 구간의 설정도 선행연구의 방법에 따라 측정하였다 (Roychowdhury 2006；김지홍 등 2008；최종서·곽영민 2010).
본 연구는 이연법인세 제도가 도입된 비상장기업을 대상으로 2000년도부터 2007년도까지 금융업을 제외한 후 이용 가능했던 최종표본 12,928개 기업 / 연 자료를 분석하였다. 실증결과는 다음과 같다. 첫째, 일정 변수뿐만 아니라 재량적 발생액까지 통제한 후에도 이연법인세비용은 적자회피 구간과 유의한 양(＋)의 관계가 있는 것으로 나타났다. 둘째, 일정 변수뿐만 아니라 재량적 발생액까지 통제한 후에도 이연법인세 비용은 이익감소회피 구간과 유의한 양(＋)의 관계가 있는 것으로 나타났다.
이상의 본 연구결과로 볼 때 비상장기업에서의 이연법인세 정보는 이익조정의 의심되는 적자회피뿐만 아니라 이익감소회피 구간과도 양(＋)의 관련성이 있다는 점에서 이연법인세 정보는 경영자의 이익조정을 탐지하는 데 있어 유용한 정보를 제공한다는 것을 시사한다. 따라서 본 연구결과는 비상장기업에서 재무제표에 보고된 이연법인세 정보가 경영자의 이익조정의 정도를 파악하는 데 있어 유용하다는 것을 보여 주었다는 데 의미가 있다. 그러한 점에서 본 연구의 발견은 관련연구에 추가적인 공헌을 할 것으로 기대되며, 또한 비상장시장에서의 이익의 질에 관심이 있는 학계, 실무계, 채권투자자, 회계기준 제정기관 및 정책당국에게도 여러 유익한 시사점을 제공할 것으로 기대된다.
This study investigates the usefulness of deferred tax expense in detecting earnings management in a non-listed firms setting. Specifically, building on the evidence of earnings management Burgstahler and Dichev (1997), this paper investigate the usefulness of deferred tax expense in detecting earnings management to meet two earnings target thresholds (1) to avoid reporting a loss, (2) to avoid reporting an earnings decline. Burgstahler and Dichev (1997) document that firms manage their reported earnings to avoid the losses or the earnings decreases, thus increasing the incidence of producing the small earnings increases and the small positive earnings. Burgstahler and Dichev (1997) classify firms that show small positive earnings (small earnings increases) on the basis whether they avoid losses (earnings decreases) by a narrow margin because such small beaters are suspected of managerial intervention by accrual management or real earnings management. Choi and Kwak (2010) report that suspected non-listed firms that slightly achieve earnings thresholds tend to manage earnings using discretionary accruals as well as real earnings management activities.
Meanwhile, prior literature on book-tax differences provides evidence consistent with the differences providing information about earnings quality. For example, Phillips et al. (2003) argue that managers typically have more discretion in financial reporting than in tax reporting and can exploit such discretion to manage income upwards in ways that do not affect current taxable income. Such earnings management will generate temporary book-tax differences that increase a firm’s net deferred tax liability (i.e., defined as the change in deferred tax liabilities less the change in deferred tax assets；DTE) and, consequently, increase its DTE. DTE is a component of a firm’s total income tax expense and reflects the tax effects of temporary differences between book income and taxable income that arise primarily from accruals for revenue and expense items that affect book and taxable income, but in different periods. Detecting earnings management is important in assessing the quality of earnings, and the results of this study should be useful to researchers studying earnings management behavior of non-listed firms and to creditors in their examination of financial reports.
Therefore, this study use deferred tax expense (DTE), a publicly available measure, as their empirical surrogate for temporary book-tax differences (Phillips et al. 2003). Following Burgstahler and Dichev (1997), this study use unusually high frequencies of small positive earnings (small earnings increases) in cross-sectional distribution of earnings level (earnings changes) and define as suspected firms whose managers might manage their earning. And this paper use discretionary accruals to measure the extent of firms’ earning management, I employ both the model identified by Dechow et al. (1995) and performance-adjusted discretionary accruals suggested by Kothari et al. (2005) to estimate discretionary accruals. This study observations are based on 12,928 firm-year data, selected from non-listed firms in Korea, for eight years (2000 to 2007).
The empirical test results are as follows. In the non-listed firms’ sample tests, I find that significantly positive relation between deferred tax expenses and the suspected non-listed firms reporting small positive earnings and small earnings increases, after controlling for other variables and discretionary accruals that affect the level of DTE. Thus, the results provide evidence consistent with deferred tax expenses generally being incrementally useful with discretionary accruals in detecting earnings management. These results are consistent with the increment usefulness of deferred tax expense in defecting earnings management in a non-listed firms setting. This implies that deferred tax information has the potential to convey relative quality of earnings aside from temporary book-tax differences. This results add to recent findings that indicate a relation between book and tax reporting and firms’ incentives to engage in earnings management activities in a listed firms setting (e.g., Phillips et al. 2003；Choi and Moon 2005；Joo et al. 2005).
This paper make a important contributions to the tax accounting literature, and this work contribute to several lines of existing research in earnings management related study. Also, these results add to the literature on the role of financial information for an important and interesting group of non-listed firms. So, I expect the findings in the paper to have useful implications for scholars as well as practitioners, creditors, accounting standard setters, and regulators.
