Corporate Social Responsibility and Tax Aggressiveness

Abstract

This study examines the association between corporate social responsibility and corporate tax aggressiveness. Based on a sample of 408 publicly listed Australian corporations for the 2008/2009 financial year, our regression results indicate that the higher the level of corporate social responsibility disclosure of a corporation, the lower is the level of tax aggressiveness. We find a negative and statistically significant association between corporate social responsibility disclosure and tax aggressiveness which holds across a number of different regression model specifications. Accordingly, our results show that more socially responsible corporations are likely to deter tax aggressive activities. Finally, the regression results from our additional analysis indicate that the social investment commitment, and corporate and CSR strategy (including the ethics and business conduct) of a corporation are important elements of CSR activities that have a negative impact on tax aggressiveness.