Advances in Management and Applied Economics

The Impacts of IFRSs and Auditor on Tax Avoidance

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• Abstract 

  This research aimed to discuss whether firms have changed their tax avoidance activities after adopting the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs). Moreover, this research firstly used the two factors (auditor industry specialization and auditor’s client importance) to confirm whether the auditor’s characteristics have the impact on the tax avoidance activities of audit client; then the comparative analysis was conducted before and after the implementation of IFRSs to understand whether auditor’s attitude has the different impacts on clients’ tax avoidance due to the implementation of IFRSs. The research results showed that firms have the more positive tax avoidance activities after adopting IFRSs. The research also found that the auditor industry specialization has the positive assisting impact on clients’ tax avoidance; if the relative importance of audit client to auditor is higher, the auditor will alleviate the clients’ tax avoidance. After the IFRSs being adopted, there are more sufficient evidences showing that the auditor is helpful to the clients’ tax avoidance, but when auditors faced more important audit clients, the impact of supervising tax avoidance has the weakening trend. This research achievement has verified that the implementation of IFRSs will change the tax avoidance behavior of firms and auditors.

  JEL classification numbers: M41, M42, K34
  Keywords: Tax avoidance; Auditor industry specialization; Auditor’s client importance; IFRSs.