Does labor unemployment insurance affect corporate tax aggressiveness?

Abstract

This paper examines the effect of unemployment insurance benefits (UIB) on corporate tax aggressiveness. Given that aggressive tax avoidance is risky and costly for the firm and its employees, we argue that low state UIB increases workers' exposure to unemployment risk and, hence, influences firms' tax strategies. Our results show a positive relation between tax aggressiveness and UIB. We also find that this relation is more pronounced for firms in industries that are more labor-intensive and firms with high financial constraints and less pronounced for firms in industries with high labor bargaining power.