{"title":"The effect of employee satisfaction on effective corporate tax planning: Evidence from Glassdoor","authors":"John Li","doi":"10.1016/j.adiac.2022.100597","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p><span>Human capital plays a substantial role in the corporate tax<span> planning process, and thus a firm's ability to attract, retain and motivate talented employees is a potential determinant of tax planning outcomes. Motivated by the premise that employee satisfaction is a key driver of productivity, I investigate the relationship between employee satisfaction ratings, collected from the website </span></span><em>Glassdoor</em><span>, and corporate tax planning outcomes. I find that firms with higher employee satisfaction ratings exhibit significantly greater tax avoidance as well as lower tax risk. A one-point increase in overall employee satisfaction ratings, on a five-point scale, is associated with a 2.6 percentage point decrease in cash effective tax rates (Cash ETRs) and a 0.20 standard deviation decrease in Cash ETR volatility. These results are stronger for firms with larger corporate tax departments, which rely more on employees to manage the tax planning process. I also find that employee satisfaction is negatively associated with UTB reserves, indicating that the increased tax avoidance is unlikely to arise from aggressive tax positions. Finally, through path analyses, I find that employee satisfaction can influence a firm's tax outcomes by reducing tax department turnover and improving the firm's internal information environment. Overall, my findings are consistent with the premise that employees play a substantial role in implementing tax avoidance strategies and mitigating tax risk, thus managers who adopt a strong work culture and employee-friendly policies can attain beneficial tax outcomes.</span></p></div>","PeriodicalId":1,"journal":{"name":"Accounts of Chemical Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":16.4000,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"4","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Accounts of Chemical Research","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0882611022000165","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"CHEMISTRY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 4
Abstract
Human capital plays a substantial role in the corporate tax planning process, and thus a firm's ability to attract, retain and motivate talented employees is a potential determinant of tax planning outcomes. Motivated by the premise that employee satisfaction is a key driver of productivity, I investigate the relationship between employee satisfaction ratings, collected from the website Glassdoor, and corporate tax planning outcomes. I find that firms with higher employee satisfaction ratings exhibit significantly greater tax avoidance as well as lower tax risk. A one-point increase in overall employee satisfaction ratings, on a five-point scale, is associated with a 2.6 percentage point decrease in cash effective tax rates (Cash ETRs) and a 0.20 standard deviation decrease in Cash ETR volatility. These results are stronger for firms with larger corporate tax departments, which rely more on employees to manage the tax planning process. I also find that employee satisfaction is negatively associated with UTB reserves, indicating that the increased tax avoidance is unlikely to arise from aggressive tax positions. Finally, through path analyses, I find that employee satisfaction can influence a firm's tax outcomes by reducing tax department turnover and improving the firm's internal information environment. Overall, my findings are consistent with the premise that employees play a substantial role in implementing tax avoidance strategies and mitigating tax risk, thus managers who adopt a strong work culture and employee-friendly policies can attain beneficial tax outcomes.
期刊介绍:
Accounts of Chemical Research presents short, concise and critical articles offering easy-to-read overviews of basic research and applications in all areas of chemistry and biochemistry. These short reviews focus on research from the author’s own laboratory and are designed to teach the reader about a research project. In addition, Accounts of Chemical Research publishes commentaries that give an informed opinion on a current research problem. Special Issues online are devoted to a single topic of unusual activity and significance.
Accounts of Chemical Research replaces the traditional article abstract with an article "Conspectus." These entries synopsize the research affording the reader a closer look at the content and significance of an article. Through this provision of a more detailed description of the article contents, the Conspectus enhances the article's discoverability by search engines and the exposure for the research.