IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/corfin/v82y2023ics0929119923001128.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Tax avoidance as an unintended consequence of environmental regulation: Evidence from the EU ETS

Author

Listed:
  • Compagnie, Vincent
  • Struyfs, Kristof
  • Torsin, Wouter

Abstract

This paper examines the extent to which polluting firms covered by the world's largest multinational emission trading scheme – the European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS) – engage in corporate tax avoidance. We exploit the sudden and significant increase in carbon prices after decisions made by the EU Council on February 28th 2017, and test whether firms' tax avoidance behavior subsequently changes. We find that pollution intensive firms engage in more corporate tax avoidance after this sudden price shock. This tax avoidance response is economically sizable as the difference between the effective tax rates between the least and most polluting firms is 5.13 percentage points. Supplemental tests indicate that the tax avoidance response of the more pollution intensive firms is dependent on their operating cost structure, while we find no significant difference in the corporate tax avoidance response depending on their financing needs. Moreover, we find some evidence of reputational concerns moderating this relationship. Additional analyses also demonstrate that increased internal and external monitoring, as reflected by higher regulatory quality and board independence, mitigates the corporate tax avoidance response. Overall, our findings are consistent with the notion that firms transfer carbon costs on to governments under the form of lower societal contributions whereas more internal and external monitoring plays a vital role in preventing this transference.

Suggested Citation

  • Compagnie, Vincent & Struyfs, Kristof & Torsin, Wouter, 2023. "Tax avoidance as an unintended consequence of environmental regulation: Evidence from the EU ETS," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:corfin:v:82:y:2023:i:c:s0929119923001128
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2023.102463
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0929119923001128
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2023.102463?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hanlon, Michelle & Heitzman, Shane, 2010. "A review of tax research," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 127-178, December.
    2. T. J. Atwood & Christina Lewellen, 2019. "The Complementarity between Tax Avoidance and Manager Diversion: Evidence from Tax Haven Firms," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 36(1), pages 259-294, March.
    3. Anna Feller & Deborah Schanz, 2017. "The Three Hurdles of Tax Planning: How Business Context, Aims of Tax Planning, and Tax Manager Power Affect Tax Expense," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 34(1), pages 494-524, March.
    4. Sanjay Patnaik, 2019. "A cross-country study of collective political strategy: Greenhouse gas regulations in the European Union," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 50(7), pages 1130-1155, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alexander, Anna & De Vito, Antonio & Menicacci, Luca, 2024. "At what cost? Environmental regulation and corporate cash holdings," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ji Seon Yoo & Ye Ji Lee, 2019. "National Culture and Tax Avoidance of Multinational Corporations," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(24), pages 1-28, December.
    2. Rainer Niemann & Mariana Sailer, 2023. "Is analytical tax research alive and kicking? Insights from 2000 until 2022," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 93(6), pages 1149-1212, August.
    3. Shams, Syed & Bose, Sudipta & Gunasekarage, Abeyratna, 2022. "Does corporate tax avoidance promote managerial empire building?," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1).
    4. Müller, Raphael & Spengel, Christoph & Vay, Heiko, 2020. "On the determinants and effects of corporate tax transparency: Review of an emerging literature," ZEW Discussion Papers 20-063, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    5. Ramzi Benkraiem & Safa Gaaya & Faten Lakhal, 2020. "Cross-Country Evidence on Earnings Quality and Corporate Tax Avoidance: The Moderating Role of Legal Institutions," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(2), pages 1714-1726:.
    6. Martin Jacob & Anna Rohlfing-Bastian & Kai Sandner, 2021. "Why do not all firms engage in tax avoidance?," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 15(2), pages 459-495, February.
    7. Christina M. Lewellen, 2023. "Tax haven incorporation and financial reporting transparency," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 28(3), pages 1811-1855, September.
    8. Cooper, Maggie & Nguyen, Quyen T.K., 2019. "Understanding the interaction of motivation and opportunity for tax planning inside US multinationals: A qualitative study," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 54(6), pages 1-1.
    9. Jannis Bischof & Joachim Gassen & Anna Rohlfing-Bastian & Davud Rostam-Afschar & Caren Sureth-Sloane, 2024. "Accounting for Transparency: a Framework and Three Applications in Tax, Managerial, and Financial Accounting," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 76(4), pages 573-611, December.
    10. Kovermann, Jost & Velte, Patrick, 2019. "The impact of corporate governance on corporate tax avoidance—A literature review," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 1-1.
    11. Daniel Fonseca Costa & Brenda Melissa Fonseca & Lélis Pedro Andrade & Bruno César Melo Moreira, 2023. "Bibliometric and scientometric analysis of the scientific field in taxation," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 1-28, January.
    12. Dain C. Donelson & Jennifer L. Glenn & Christopher G. Yust, 2022. "Is tax aggressiveness associated with tax litigation risk? Evidence from D&O Insurance," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 519-569, June.
    13. Sarfraz Khan & Sung‐Jin Park & Stanley Veliotis & John K. Wald, 2023. "Director and officer liability and corporate tax avoidance," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(7-8), pages 1338-1371, July.
    14. Guan Ping Zhu & He Fa Gui & Tao Peng & Chong Hui Jiang, 2023. "Corporate tax avoidance and corporate financialization: The moderating effect of managerial myopia," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 44(1), pages 459-472, January.
    15. Andrew M. Bauer & Junxiong Fang & Jeffrey Pittman & Yinqi Zhang & Yuping Zhao, 2020. "How Aggressive Tax Planning Facilitates the Diversion of Corporate Resources: Evidence from Path Analysis†," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(3), pages 1882-1913, September.
    16. Leon Zolotoy & Don O’Sullivan & Geoffrey P. Martin & Robert M. Wiseman, 2021. "Stakeholder Agency Relationships: CEO Stock Options and Corporate Tax Avoidance," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(3), pages 782-814, May.
    17. Sarhan, Ahmed A. & Elmagrhi, Mohamed H. & Elkhashen, Emad M., 2024. "Corruption prevention practices and tax avoidance: The moderating effect of corporate board characteristics," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).
    18. Arfah Habib Saragih & Syaiful Ali, 2023. "Corporate tax risk: a literature review and future research directions," Management Review Quarterly, Springer, vol. 73(2), pages 527-577, June.
    19. Harald J. Amberger & Saskia Kohlhase, 2023. "International taxation and the organizational form of foreign direct investment," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 54(8), pages 1529-1561, October.
    20. Luca Menicacci, 2022. "Financial reporting and book-tax conformity: A review of the issues," FINANCIAL REPORTING, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2022(1), pages 41-77.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Emission prices; EU ETS; Corporate tax avoidance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H26 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Tax Evasion and Avoidance
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:corfin:v:82:y:2023:i:c:s0929119923001128. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jcorpfin .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.