Accounting and Auditing Studies

Accounting and Auditing Studies

Impact of Audit Committee Characteristics on Tax Avoidance In the Listed Companies of the Tehran Stock Exchange

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Ghodratolla Barzegar 1
Mohsen Hasan Nataj Kordi 2
Ali Abbasi 3
1 Assistant Prof, Accounting, University of Mazandaran, Iran
2 Ph.D. Student, Accounting, University of Mazandaran, Iran
3 MSc, Accounting, Amol Institute of Higher Education, Iran
10.22034/iaas.2020.107630
Abstract
The Audit Committee is a controlling mechanism in corporate governance structure in order to aligning the interests of managers and stakeholders and exerted through monitoring and control and it has been required in Iran in recent years. So the question that arises in this study is how does the audit committee work on non-transparent and complex tax avoidance activities? Does it based on the value-creating perspective increase these activities or, in accordance with the agency theory reduces tax avoidance activities? Accordingly, the main purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of the audit committee's characteristics on tax avoidance. So 114 listed companies in Tehran Stock Exchange during the period of 2013 to 2017 were selected as sample and their data were analyzed by combined analysis method. The findings of the research show that the characteristics of the audit committee, including: Independence, size and financial expertise of the members of the audit committee, have a negative and significant impact on corporate tax avoidance.
Keywords
Tax Avoidance
Audit Committee Financial Expertise
Audit Committee Independence
Audit Committee Size
Accounting and Auditing Studies
Volume 9, Issue 33
Spring 2020
Pages 25-42