외환위기 전후 기업차원의 암묵세 변화 분석

Abstract

본 연구는 외환위기라는 경제적 사건을 전후하여 기업차원의 암묵세의 크기를 추정하고 암묵세의 변화를 분석하였다. 암묵세의 변화는 기간별 변화 외에도 산업별 변화가 존재하는지를 분석하고 변화의 요인을 설명하였다. 분석 결과 암묵세 추정치는 외환위기 전 기간은 -0.261로 부(-)의 암묵세인 반면 외환위기 후 기간은 0.323으로 정(+)의 암묵세가 존재하는 것으로 나타나 외환위기 전에 비해 암묵세의 크기가 양(+)의 값으로 바뀌고 완전하지 않으나 암묵세가 실현되는 것으로 나타났다. 그리고 산업별 암묵세의 크기를 추정한 결과 외환위기 전과 후에 나타나는 기간별 암묵세의 변화는 모든 산업에 평균적으로 발생하는 것이 아니라 산업별로 차별적으로 발생하는 것으로 나타났다. 암묵세 증가에 영향을 미치는 요인을 산업경쟁력의 관점에서 분석한 결과 외환위기 전에 산업집중도가 산업 평균보다 높은 산업에서 외환위기 후에 경쟁의 강화에 따른 산업집중도 하락이 암묵세의 크기를 증가시킨 요인으로 나타나 산업집중도의 변화로 인해 암묵세가 나타난다는 증거를 제시한 것으로 보인다. 암묵세의 증가에 영향을 미치는 요인을 세무계획 측면에서 분석한 결과 외환위기 후 경쟁이 강화된 산업에서 암묵세가 나타났으나 산업별 조세혜택의 지속성은 하락하여 암묵세가 완전하게 실현되지 못하는 요인이 되는 것으로 보인다. 본 연구의 의의는 다음과 같다. 연도별 산업별로 암묵세를 추정하고 암묵세의 크기가 연도별산업별로 차별화된다는 증거를 제시하였고, 외환위기 전후 산업별 암묵세의 크기 변화가 산업경쟁력의 변화와 산업별 조세혜택의 변화에 기인한다는 증거를 제시하였다. 연도별 산업별로 암묵세를 추정하여 기존 연구를 확장하고 산업경쟁력과 산업별 조세혜택의 변화가 암묵세의 변화를 설명한다는 증거를 제시하였다는 점에 의의가 있다. 국내 선행연구는 외환위기 이전 세전조세혜택(PTTSE)과 세전수익률(PTROE)과의 관계가 양(+)의 값을 가지는 것에 대하여 암묵세 이론과 반대되는 현상이라고 언급하였을 뿐 명확히 해석하지 못하였으나 본연구는 암묵세의 크기 추정을 통해 외환위기 전 부(-)의 암묵세가 존재하였음을 제시하여 기존 연구결과에 대해 명확한 해석을 제공하였다.The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent of implicit taxes at the corporate level and the effect on implicit taxes before and after the Asian financial crisis. We analyse the change of implicit taxes not only cross-sectional variations but also industrial variations. In our analysis, we use Korean listed firms with available Korea Investors Services (KIS)-Vaule data from 1991 to 2012. We restrict the sample to non-financial, non-utility firms and have a december year-end. Additionally, firm-years with missing financial data and firm-years which can not estimate effective tax rates are excluded. We delete observations in which any continuous variable lies beyond the highest and lowest 1% of the distribution for that variable to control for outliers. These data requirements result in a sample of 7,838 firm-year observations which consist of 2,460 observations before the financial crisis(1991-1997) and 5,378 observations after the financial crisis(2000-2012). Using four alternative specifications including correlation, regression, and estimating the extent of implicit taxes, we provide strong evidence that before the financial crisis implicit taxes at the corporate level do not offset any of the variation in explicit taxes. Contrary to the economic theory, we find evidence of negative implicit taxes in this period. Firms with lower effective tax rates due to tax benefits had higher pretax return and higher after tax return, indicating that implicit taxes did not eliminate any of the firms`` tax benefits. One of our specifications estimates the extent of implicit taxes and finds that the average of implicit taxes is -0.261 in this period and this result indicates that variation in explicit taxes is not offset by variation in pre-tax income. But, after the financial crisis we observe an increase in the extent of implicit taxes at the corporate level. One of our specifications estimates the extent of implicit taxes and finds that the average of implicit taxes is 0.323 in this period. This result indicates that after the financial crisis about a third of the explicit tax advantage is offset by the pretax return disadvantage and a large increase in implicit taxes in this period. We also estimate the extent of implicit taxes at the industry level annually and finds that there is an inter-temporal variations in the extent of implicit taxes and the variations before and after the financial crisis appears differently by industry level. To investigate this possibility that the increase in implicit taxes after the financial crisis is due to a change in the intensity of competition faced by firms in our sample, we examine whether the level of competition in the industry level changed before and after the financial crisis. We use a Herfindahl index to measure average concentration ratio for each industry and finds that increase in implicit taxes was concentrated in industries with above mean concentration ratio before financial crisis, and was mainly due to the increase in competition after the financial crisis. To investigate the possibility that aggressive tax planning after the financial crisis may have contributed to the increase in implicit taxes at the corporate level, we examine the persistence of tax preferences and finds that there is a large volatility in tax preferences from one year to the next, and less persistent tax preferences after the financial crisis. This suggests that positive implicit taxes after the financial crisis was mainly due to the increase in competition in this period, and less persistent tax preferences at the industry level may affect negatively for the realization of implicit taxes. Next, by examining the role of firm-specific characteristics that have been found to be associated with tax planning, we find evidence that the change in pretax return associated with tax planning partly explain the realization of implicit taxes. This paper contributes to the implicit tax study as follows by providing an additional evidence of the extent of the implicit taxes. First, even though there are lots of implicit tax research focusing on the individual assets , only a limited studies of the existence of implicit taxes at the corporate level are exist due to a methodological issue. This paper focuses on overcoming the limit by analysing implicit taxes at the corporate level using industry mean return on equity as an equilibrium ROE as is suggested by Jennings e t al.(2012). Second, Almost implicit tax research at the corporate level only examine the relation between tax burden (or tax benefit) and pretax return, and do not directly estimate the extent of implicit tax at the corporate level. This paper extend the prior research by estimating the extent of implicit taxes at the corporate level using maximum likelihood estimation. Third, even though prior research only focus on the annual extent of implicit taxes, this paper additionally analyse the extent of implicit taxes by industry and finds evidence that the level of competition and the persistence of tax preferences in the industry level partly explain the change in implicit taxes before and after the financial crisis.