Tax avoidance in family firms: a literature review

Abstract

PurposeThis paper aims to review the empirical literature dealing with the association between family firms and tax avoidance.Design/methodology/approachEmpirical papers are collected based on electronic searches in several editorial sources (e.g. Elsevier, Emerald, Meridian Allenpress, Springer, Sage, Taylor and Francis and Wiley-Blackwell) in family-related, accounting and finance journals. Key words used to identify relevant studies are “family firms” or “family ownership” combined with “tax avoidance”, “tax aggressiveness”, “tax evasion” and “tax heaven”. This search yields 21 published papers over the period of 2010–2022.FindingsThe summary of empirical studies examining the relationship between family firms and tax avoidance suggests that the majority of them have been conducted in Germany, USA and Taiwan and other European civil law countries. The association between family firms and tax avoidance is negative in USA, Finland and Belgium. By contrast, the relationship between family firms and tax avoidance is positive and significant in other developed (Germany and Italy) and developing economies (Brazil, India, Malaysia and Tunisia). In Taiwan, the impact of family firms on tax avoidance depends on corporate opacity that mitigates the negative impact of family firms on tax avoidance.Practical implicationsWith respect to regulators, this review informs fiscal authorities that family firms are associated with high levels of tax aggressiveness in some settings (e.g. Brazil, Germany, Italy and Tunisia). Accordingly, they should be aware about this tax management behavior in family firms to avoid its adverse effect on tax revenues. With respect to auditors, this study alerts them about the necessity to consider fiscal audit risk linked to family firms when planning their audit missions especially in countries characterized by high level of corporate opacity.Originality/valueThis literature review represents a first historical record and an introduction for accounting scholars who aim to investigate the topics linked to tax aggressiveness in the family firms’ context. It also highlights some limits related to this stream of research and offers future research perspectives.