The Firm Life Cycle Dynamics of Tax Avoidance

Abstract

This paper aimed at finding out whether tax avoidance differed across firm life cycle (FLC). We used cash flows pattern as a proxy to identify FLC into 4 phases, namely introduction, growth, mature, and decline. Tax avoidance was measured using effective tax rate (ETR) to show the impact of this practice on net income. Each FLC phase had different characteristics and hence explained its dynamics to implement tax avoidance in every stage. As a part of firms� important strategy, tax avoidance decision would consider resource allocation across FLC phases. We constructed a dataset of Indonesia publicly listed manufacturing firms which were classified as basic industries and chemicals sectors. We used a final sample of 56 companies with an 8-year research period and found that tax avoidance practice varied along FLC phases. Based on the 448 firm-year observations, this study found that firms significantly positively engaged with tax avoidance in introduction and decline stages while significantly negatively engaged in growth and mature stages. These results indicate the extent of FLC phases in explaining firms� tendency to be involved in tax avoidance and thus useful for predicting current and future potential tax.