현행 법인세회계 기준서는 이연법인세자산의 인식과정에 상당한 재량권을 부여함으로써 기업이 법인세 회계정책을 기회주의적 수단으로 이용할 여지를 남기고 있다. 따라서 본 연구는 이연법인세자산 계정을 이용한 지배주주의 기회주의 회계정책 선택 행위 가능성을 탐색하기 위해 기업지배구조, 이연법인세자산 및 기업가치의 관련성을 실증적으로 분석하였다. 특히, 본 연구는 이연법인세자산의 실현가능성 판단에 대한 지배주주의 기회주의 동기변수로 지배주주의 소유－지배권 괴리 변수를 채택하였다. 지배주주의 소유－지배권 괴리는 지배주주 자신의 의사결정에 대한 한계효익과 한계비용에 대한 균형을 왜곡시킬 수 있으므로 강한 기회주의적 동기를 유발시킬 수 있다. 본 연구는 지배주주의 소유－지배권 괴리에 따라 이연법인세자산 회계정보가 자본시장에서 차별적으로 반응하고 있음을 보여주는 실증증거를 제시하였다. 또한 본 연구 결과는 지배주주의 소유－지배권 괴리도와 기업가치의 관련성이 개략적으로 밑이 평평한 "U자" 형태를 보여주고 있음을 제시하였다. 이러한 결과는 우리나라의 경우에 지배주주의 소유－지배권 괴리와 기업가치의 관련성이 선형성을 이루지 않고 비선형적 관계를 유지할 가능성을 시사하고 있다. 향후 법인세회계기준 개정과정은 이연법인세자산에 대한 기업지배구조의 영향요인에 대한 심도 있는 고려가 필요하다.
It is generally assumed that the more realizable the future economic benefits are, the more relevant the market value is to the deferred tax assets. That is, as the benefits are expected to be highly realizable in the future, the deferred tax assets and the firm value would have a significantly positive association. If so, it would imply that investors have different estimates of the deferred tax assets according to their realizability and that the realizability is already reflected on the stock prices. This study empirically investigates the effects of manager-controlling-shareholders` opportunistic behavior on the market value of firms and the size of deferred tax assets. Specifically, it examines the effects of valuation of deferred tax assets with respect to the realizability of future tax expenses and audit quality or controllability by manager-controlling-shareholders on their discretion in estimating its realizability. Determining the realizability of future tax expenses is likely to be highly dependent on firm governance, i.e., solid firm governance should mitigate any risk underlying the realizability of future tax expenses since manager-controlling-shareholders may opportunistically exercise their discretion in order to boost income. We hypothesized that (1) the smaller the difference between the cash flow rights and the control over cash flows by the manager-controlling-shareholders are, the higher the possibility of reporting less realizable deferred tax assets is, and (2) the less solid the firm`s governance is, the lower the reported market value of deferred tax assets is. In order to achieve the purpose of this study, surrogate measures are used for a variable of future taxable income since it is practically hard to measure future taxable income accurately. Specifically, the less realizable deferred tax assets are defined as the differences between the cash flow rights and control over cash flows, and the cash flows as average income from continuing operations for the past three years times marginal tax rates. The sample firms for analyses were selected from non-banking firms (firm-years) listed on the Korea Stock Exchange between 1999 and 2003 with fiscal years ending in December. Analyses of data show that the firms with larger difference between cash flow rights and control over cash flows report smaller amounts of realizable deferred tax assets, as shown in panel 2 of
. The control variables such as earnings per share, dividends and net earnings show the expected sign and they are significant. Further analyses of firms with less solid governance reinforced the negative relation between the market value of deferred tax assets and firms` governance since the negative relationship is more salient for those firms with larger difference between the cash flow rights and control over cash flows by the managercontrolling- shareholders. The information effects of the deferred tax assets on the market value of firms diminish as the difference gets larger. Nevertheless, the relationship does not show a monotonic increase. It can be best described as a concave, flat U-shaped function. In summary, these results may explain the manager-controlling-shareholders` motives to affect the evaluation of the realizability of future tax expenses and to report larger deferred tax assets. This study suggests that deferred tax assets reported are an economic consequence of the opportunistic behavior when evaluating the realizability of future tax expenses. The accounting standards setting bodies should exert more efforts on enhancing the comparability of accounting information among firms and mitigating the manager-controlling-shareholders` incentives for earnings management related to the realizability of future tax assets.
