Measuring Tax Avoidance using Effective Tax Rate: Concepts and Implications

Lack of consensus on the multifaceted concept of tax avoidance has caused us to witness a plethora of proxies that have been developed to measure and capture tax avoidance for the purpose of empirical analysis. Therefore, this study contributes to the literature on tax avoidance as it seeks to find out the similarity or differences between tax avoidance measures, with specific emphasis on effective tax rate based measures. Conducting the ANOVA and the Games Howell multiple comparison tests on a sample of 673 unbalanced firm-year observations, the study found that there is a significant difference between the examined measures, while the Games Howell test further showed that the H & S measure differs significantly from the ETR based measures. The implication of the findings for researchers is that they are to consider their research objectives before deciding on the measure of tax avoidance to use in their study, as there are significant differences between these measures

Online financial disclosures in the Nigerian public sector

The objective of this study is to examine the online financial disclosure practices by Nigerian public sector entities. In achieving this, the cross-sectional research design was employed and data gathered from 27 states for a one year period. The ordered logistic regression technique was used to estimate the model and the findings reveal that wealth and political competition have significant positive relationships with online financial disclosure in Nigeria while the size of the state has a significant but negative relationship. Also, the age of the state has an insignificant relationship with online financial disclosure in Nigeria. Based on these, the study recommends that healthy competition should be encouraged in forms of public debates, assessment polls on public sector entities, frequent programmes aimed at assessing the progress of public entities probably on a yearly basis or biannual or even at the end of a regime (before the commencement of another

Audit Firm Reputation and Audit Quality

The objective of this study was to evaluate the relationship between audit firm reputation and audit quality using a sample of listed companies trading on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange. The Ordinary Least Square Model estimation technique was used to analyze the relationship between the audit firm reputation and audit quality. Our findings showed that there is a positive significant relationship between audit firm reputation and audit quality. The control variables examined alongside audit firm reputation revealed that aside audit committee size; all other variables so examined have a positive relationship with audit quality. We therefore recommend that companies should employ the services of audit firms with proven track record of audit quality and reputation. Keywords: Audit quality, Audit firm reputatio

Audit Committee Characteristics and Timeliness of Financial Reports in Nigeria

This study examines the nexus between audit committee characteristics and timeliness of financial reports in Nigeria. The study employed correlation research design using the annual report of thirteen (13) listed deposit money banks in Nigeria for the period 2016 - 2020. Timeliness of financial reports was measured as a categorical variable that assumed the value of one (1) for banks that released their annual report within the 90 days stipulated by the regulatory agency and zero (0) for those that fail to meet this requirement. Audit committee independence was measured using proportion of independent non-executive directors on audit committee; audit committee meeting was measured using number of meetings held in a year; audit committee financial expertise was measured using the proportion of members who have accounting or financial management knowledge while audit committee gender diversity was measured using the number of women on the board. The data for the study were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation and binary logit regression technique. The results show that audit committee meeting has a statistically significant relationship with timeliness of financial reports and the relationship was negative. Other audit committee attributes did not have any significant relationship with timeliness of financial reporting. Flowing from the findings, the study recommends that money deposit banks should ensure that meetings held by the audit committee are managed so that deliberations do not lead to untimely release of financial reports

AUDIT COMMITTEE ATTRIBUTES AND AUDIT QUALITY: A BENCHMARK ANALYSIS

This study examined audit committee attributes and audit quality with emphasis on the specific requirements of the 2011 SEC code. The study applied the deductive approach via the expost facto research design and the Binary probit regression model in analyzing the various hypotheses put forward in study. Data used for the study were gathered for 150 firm-year observations from the annual reports of quoted companies on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange. Findings from the study revealed that audit committee size, frequency of meetings, number of expertise and overall effectiveness all have a positive relationship with audit quality. However, only size and overall effectiveness was significant in their relationship. The study recommends that since the significant positive nature of audit committee effectiveness show that four attributes jointly account for effectiveness, firms are encouraged to establish audit committees that have all these attributes. Furthermore, the requirement of having a 6-member audit committee is sound and empirically proven to aid audit quality. Therefore, firms yet to subscribe to these should hasten up, while sanctions should be made for firms that do not

The nexus between standalone risk committees and tax aggressiveness: evidence from Nigeria

Abstract Effective management of risk especially tax risk is arguably hinged on a framework of corporate governance that ensures amongst others that the board of directors is effective and efficient in delegating some of its roles and duties to well-structured committees, without relinquishing its responsibilities. Based on this assertion, this paper inquires into the link between constituting a standalone risk management committee and tax aggressiveness in nonfinancial listed companies in Nigeria. A combination of ex post facto research design and quantitative approach was employed while data were sourced from the financials of eighty (80) firms for twelve (12) years (2008–2019). The censored Tobit estimator was used to evaluate the model for the study, and the finding agrees with the expectation of the agency theory that the presence of a standalone risk committee mitigates tax aggressive practice in Nigeria. The finding has several contributions: first, it extends the literature on the link between corporate governance and organisational behaviour with emphasis on tax aggressiveness. Second, it provides evidence on how the establishment of a risk management committee impacts aggressive tax behaviour, thus, supporting the position of the Nigerian Code of Corporate Governance 2018 on the establishment of risk committees. Flowing from this finding, the study recommends strict regulatory compliance by those charged with governance (internal and external) with the requirements for a risk committee as this will improve governance and reduce the risk emanating from tax aggressiveness

Audit committee attributes and audit quality: a benchmark analysis

This study examined audit committee attributes and audit quality with emphasis on the specific requirements of the 2011 SEC code. The study applied the deductive approach via the expost facto research design and the Binary probit regression model in analyzing the various hypotheses put forward in study. Data used for the study were gathered for 150 firm-year observations from the annual reports of quoted companies on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange. Findings from the study revealed that audit committee size, frequency of meetings, number of expertise and overall effectiveness all have a positive relationship with audit quality. However, only size and overall effectiveness was significant in their relationship. The study recommends that since the significant positive nature of audit committee effectiveness show that four attributes jointly account for effectiveness, firms are encouraged to establish audit committees that have all these attributes. Furthermore, the requirement of having a 6-member audit committee is sound and empirically proven to aid audit quality. Therefore, firms yet to subscribe to these should hasten up, while sanctions should be made for firms that do not