Tax Avoidance and Asymmetric Behavior of Costs

Document Type : Accounting

Authors

• Roya Darabi
• Mohammad Zamani

Department of Accounting, College of Management and Accounting, South Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

10.22067/ijaaf.v1i1.67392

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between tax avoidance and asymmetric costs (cost stickiness). Generally, shareholders expect managers to pursue their personal interests, so they attempt to reduce tax liabilities and tax avoidance, because additional benefits of reducing contingent liabilities are more than the expected additional costs. Managers of a company often face issues such as planning and control of the business. In the planning stage, managers need costs information to predict future costs. Since changes in future costs can be determined based on the sales revenue changes, the amount of spending and costs can be predicted based on their relations with this factor. The results of hypothesis testing of 112 listed companies on Tehran Stock Exchange during 2006-2015 showed that tax avoidance has a positive and significant relationship with the costs changes at the time of falling sales. In addition, when there is a fluctuation in cash flow, tax avoidance has a negative and significant relationship with costs changes.

Keywords

• Tax avoidance
• Tax
• Cost behavior
• Cost stickiness

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