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Corporate Reputation and Optimal Tax Planning

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Corporate Reputation and Optimal Tax Planning What Stakeholders Expect from Corporations When It Comes to Paying Tax: Corporate Reputation and Optimal Tax Planning March 2015 Chris Brooks Professor in Finance, Director of Research and Deputy Head of School, ICMA Centre, Henley Business School Carola Hillenbrand Professor in Organisational Psychology, John Madejski Centre for Reputation, Henley Business School Kevin Money Professor of Reputation and Responsible Leadership, Director of the John Madejski Centre for Reputation, Henley Business School Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Deloitte for their financial contribution towards the cost incurred in conducting this study. We are grateful to Chris Godfrey, Lisa Schopohl and Nicole Tovstiga for excellent research assistance. We also appreciate the comments of Mark Kennedy and Alexandra Warren of Deloitte on a previous version of this document. The authors alone are responsible for any errors. Henley Business School Founded in 1945, Henley was the first business school to be established in the UK and is one of the oldest and most respected schools in Europe. It is consistently ranked among the world’s top 50 business schools by the Financial Times and The Economist. It is among an elite group of business schools – the top 1% in the world – to be triple accredited for the quality and capability of its faculty and output. As part of the University of Reading, Henley operates within an academic institution that is placed within the top 1% of all universities globally. ii © Brooks, Hillenbrand and Money, March 2015 Contents List of figures v List of tables vi Executive summary ix 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Background and motivation 1 1.2 Objectives and contributions of this report 6 2 The firm and its corporation tax bill: context and causal factors 8 2.1 Terminology and the UK tax environment 8 2.2 What are the costs and benefits of tax avoidance? 10 2.3 Tax and reputation 13 3 Stakeholder survey: methodology, findings and engagement process 16 3.1 Methodology 16 3.2 Perceptions of fairness of the UK tax system overall 16 3.3 Views of large UK companies 19 3.4 Guiding approaches for companies on tax issues 21 3.5 The link between corporate tax policies and stock market performance 23 3.6 The link between corporation tax rates and competition 23 3.7 Public support for large businesses 25 3.8 Large businesses as corporate citizens 27 3.9 Potential strategies to build and restore the public’s trust in large businesses 28 3.10 Towards a stakeholder engagement process on issues of tax and corporations: what, how and with whom? 30 © Brooks, Hillenbrand and Money, March 2015 iii 4 Investors as stakeholders and the link between tax and financial performance 38 4.1 The existing evidence 38 4.2 Data collection and organisation 43 4.3 Factors determining how much tax firms pay 56 4.4 Can corporation tax rates explain the cross-sectional variation in stock returns? 58 4.5 Are firms that have lower effective tax rates more risky? 63 4.6 Does tax-related media coverage affect share prices? 65 5 Conclusions 77 Tables 81 References 101 Appendix: Variable definitions and Compustat Global mnemonics 108 iv © Brooks, Hillenbrand and Money, March 2015 List of figures Figure 1 Perceived responsibility for issues of fairness in current practices of paying tax in the UK 19 Figure 2 What large UK-registered businesses (FTSE 100 & 250) should start and stop doing 21 Figure 3 Guiding approaches that companies could adopt in respect of tax 22 Figure 4 Support for statements about large UK-registered businesses (FTSE 100 & 250) 26 Figure 5 Key drivers of restoring the public’s trust in large business and tax 28 Figure 6 Tax engagement process for corporations and stakeholders 32 Figure 7 The profile of the average of the cash and total effective tax rates 1991–2014 against the statutory rate 54 Figure 8 Cumulative abnormal returns for all firms subject to tax-related news stories 69 Figure 9 Cumulative abnormal returns for small versus big firms subject to tax-related news stories 70 Figure 10 Cumulative abnormal returns for firms subject to tax-related news where the stories relate to potentially serious issues where firms may be culpable versus more general stories 72 Figure 11 Cumulative abnormal returns for consumer- facing versus non-consumer-facing firms subject to tax-related news stories 73 Figure 12 Cumulative abnormal returns for firms subject to tax-related news stories pre- and post- September 2008 75 © Brooks, Hillenbrand and Money, March 2015 v List of tables Table 1 Summary statistics for tax data and other key variables 81 Table 2 Number of observations by year and by industry 82 Table 3 Correlations between key variables 82 Table 4 Mean cash effective tax rates (CETR) by year and by industry 83 Table 5 Standard deviation of cash effective tax rates (CETR) by year and by industry 83 Table 6 Mean GAAP effective tax rates (GETR) by year and by industry 84 Table 7 Standard deviation of GAAP effective tax rates (GETR) by year and by industry 84 Table 8 Mean current book tax differences by year and by industry 85 Table 9 Mean permanent book tax differences (current + deferred taxes) by year and by industry 85 Table 10 Mean tax planning scores based on five-year cash effective tax rates by year and by industry 86 Table 11 Mean average tax planning scores based on five- year GAAP effective tax rates (current + deferred taxes) by year and by industry 86 Table 12 Random effects panel regressions of the determinants of tax rates, book tax differences and tax planning scores 87 Table 13 Fixed effects panel regressions for the impact of tax and other variables on monthly returns (tax measure: CETR) 88 Table 14 Fixed effects panel regressions for the impact of tax and other variables on monthly returns (tax measure: GETR) 88 Table 15 Fixed effects panel regressions for the impact of tax and other variables on monthly returns (tax measure: BTD) 89 Table 16 Fixed effects panel regressions for the impact of tax and other variables on monthly returns (tax measure: permanent BTD) 89 vi © Brooks, Hillenbrand and Money, March 2015 Table 17 Fixed effects panel regressions for the impact of tax and other variables on monthly returns (tax measure: CETR) 90 Table 18 Fixed effects panel regressions for the impact of tax and other variables on monthly returns (tax measure: GETR) 90 Table 19 Time series of cross-sectional regressions for the impact of tax and other variables on monthly returns (tax measure: CETR) 91 Table 20 Time series of cross-sectional regressions for the impact of tax and other variables on monthly returns (tax measure: GETR) 91 Table 21 Time series of cross-sectional regressions for the impact of tax and other variables on monthly returns (tax measure: five-year average CETR) 92 Table 22 Time series of cross-sectional regressions for the impact of tax and other variables on monthly returns (tax measure: five-year average GETR) 92 Table 23 Time series of cross-sectional regressions for the impact of tax and other variables on monthly returns (tax measure: book tax difference) 93 Table 24 Time series of cross-sectional regressions for the impact of tax and other variables on monthly returns (tax measure: permanent book tax difference) 93 Table 25 Time series of cross-sectional regressions for the impact of tax and other variables on monthly returns (tax measure: CETR) 94 Table 26 Time series of cross-sectional regressions for the impact of tax and other variables on monthly returns (tax measure: GETR) 94 Table 27 Fixed effects panel regressions for the impact of tax and other variables on monthly returns year by year (tax measure CETR or GETR) 95 Table 28 Fixed effects panel regressions for the impact of tax and other variables on monthly returns industry by industry (tax measure CETR or GETR) 96 © Brooks, Hillenbrand and Money, March 2015 vii Table 29 Random effects panel regressions of the effect of tax and other determinants on the CAPM beta measure of risk 97 Table 30 Random effects panel regressions of the effect of tax and other determinants on idiosyncratic risk 98 Table 31 Average abnormal returns and cumulative abnormal returns (%) for firms whose names appear in the media in a tax-related story 99 Table 32 Multiple regressions to evaluate the impact of various factors on cumulative abnormal returns around the occurrence of a tax-related news story 100 viii © Brooks, Hillenbrand and Money, March 2015 Executive summary Executive summary This study presents the findings of an extensive research project that sought to determine stakeholder expectations regarding companies’ corporation tax practices in the UK, combining both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The qualitative approach The qualitative aspect employed a detailed survey of 61 representatives of four stakeholder groups: industry representatives, consumer bodies, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and business decision-makers from FTSE 100 & 250 companies. In general, there was broad agreement on the majority of issues between business decision-makers and industry representatives (‘the business community’); there was also considerable agreement between NGOs and consumer bodies (‘the public bodies’). The structured survey asked respondents in 30–60 minute telephone interviews a range of questions concerning their views on the fairness of the tax system, whether large UK-based companies pay an appropriate amount of tax, whether they believe there to be a link between corporate tax rates and competition, how they consider big business is perceived in society, what could be done to build trust, who should be involved in designing a firm’s planning process and what should such a process look like.
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