What happens when Islamic capital markets move away from tax neutrality - a look at Oman & Saudi Arabia

This article evaluates how tax reforms affect stock prices of local and foreign firms in Oman and Saudi Arabia. Both countries introduced corporate tax on foreign firms, exempting local firms from corporate tax, when they moved away from a pre-existing Islamic tax neutrality policy. These reforms were implemented in 2009 in Oman and in 2004 in Saudi Arabia. These tax reform events - applying to foreign firms and not applying to local firms in the same markets - offer ideal experimental situations in two economies to test the taxation theories on how stock prices must react. We find that the results support the Modigliani- Miller and Elton-Gruber tax theories in two ways. Firstly, foreign firms that had their taxes reduced experienced stock price increases. Secondly, local firms not subjected to tax or tax reduction showed no visible tax effect. These are theory-consistent findings in the unique tax environments in these two Islamic countries, which moved away from tax neutrality, enabling us to obtain very clear evidence on modern theories of taxation. In our view, this evidence is significantly important addition to the literature on tax and taxation and for those contemplating a move away from Islamic tax neutrality

The effect of Goods and Services Tax (GST) imposition on stock market overreaction and trading volume in Malaysia and Australia

This paper investigates the GST imposition effect on stock overreaction and trading volume in Bursa Malaysia and Australian Securities Exchange (ASX). To evaluate the stock overreaction, t-test, Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test and MannWhitney U-Test are employed to analyse the market-adjusted abnormal returns. The homogeneity of stock trading volume is assessed by block resampling bootstrapping, t-test and regression. Consistent with the Overreaction Hypothesis, this research reveals that all arbitrage portfolios over one-month interval in Bursa Malaysia are able to generate significant abnormal profits. This infers the profitability of implementing short-term contrarian strategy in the Malaysian stock market. However, the analysis for ASX shows the opposite. Additionally, GST imposition reduces the trading volume in Bursa Malaysia but not in ASX. This empirical result will be of interest to the policymakers who are considering imposing tax on fee-based financial services, as well as the investors and fund managers who are concern about profits maximisation

Impact of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) succession policy on CEO turnover announcement in Malaysia

This paper presents a fresh perspective on chief executive officer (CEO) turnover, where the impact of CEO turnover on firm value is analysed based on whether the removal is planned or unplanned. A total of 146 announcements for ten years in Malaysia is examined using an event study method. The results indicate that, in general, CEO turnover announcements cause a significant reaction due to changes in the firm’s investment decisions. Specifically, a significant positive impact exists when CEO turnover occurs as planned. In a planned turnover, the negative news of the removal of the CEO is immediately minimised with the positive news of a CEO appointment, indicating the positive impact of establishing a CEO succession plan on firm value. This finding adds new knowledge to the current literature and allows policymakers to examine the establishment of a CEO succession policy

Value of CEO succession policy on CEO transition

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) transition is a continuous process of change in leadership involving removal of existing CEO and replacement of new CEO. Ideally, CEO transition occurs based upon the CEO Succession Policy developed by the Board of Directors. The CEO succession plan and policy is important because it reduces the impact of a CEO's sudden removal on the firm. In recent time, there is an immense increase in CEO transition recorded among emerging economy, nonetheless, the issue has not been well addressed in the literature. Disclosure policy in Malaysia also views change of CEO as an important element that will have an impact ont he firm value. To evaluate the CEO succession policy, this study investigates the effect of CEO transition announcement on the share price. This study adopts the event study method and employs two estimation models for expected return, which are Market Model (MM) and Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM).This study examines the simultaneous announcement, which indicates the adoption of succession policy, as well as the announcement of CEO appointment and CEO turnover. A total of354 announcements of CEO transition from 170 firms listed on Bursa Malaysia, over the duration of ten years from 2007-2016is observed. The result indicates that the firm’s share price generally reacts towards all types of CEO transition announcement, with a stronger reaction significantly observed through the simultaneous announcement. Further robustness check with regression analysis confirms that when the CEO transition announcement is simultaneous, it creates more value to the firm. In other words, the CEO succession policy, where proper CEO transition takes place, eliminates the uncertainty and risk, hence, giving a positive impact on firm value. This finding also contributes to the signalling theory literature, where anticipated event induces a positive reaction from investors, as reflected in the firm share price

Influence of religiosity and customs law towards import duty noncompliance behavior in Malaysia

The issue on tax noncompliance has been critically discussed by the government and academic researchers due to its indirect impact on the country’s social and economic development. The present study was undertaken to examine the Malaysian taxpayer’s noncompliance behaviour, with the intention of adapting the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) to describe the behaviour and actions taken by the noncompliant taxpayers. A total of 117 taxpayers from noncompliant companies in the year 2015 were sampled and analyzed. The findings revealed strong positive effects of Religiosity and Customs Law on import duty noncompliance behavior when the relationship was supported by the element of intention not to comply.In using a revised TBP framework, the study makes a significant theoretical contribution to the literature on indirect tax. Furthermore, this study has a number of practical implication for the Royal Malaysia Customs Department as the authority agency in terms of combating noncompliance issue

Tax climate manipulation on individual tax behavioural intentions

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to extend the slippery slope framework by exploring different dimensions of compliance quality and tax minimisation under different tax climate manipulation by groups. Design/methodology/approach The authors run a random assignment of tax climate manipulations through questionnaire with 301 usable data collected from the full-time postgraduate students, employed individuals and self-employed individuals. Manipulation check and results are generated via multivariate analysis of variance. Findings The results confirm the biggest impact of synergistic climate on voluntary compliance, and small to medium impact of antagonistic climate on tax evasion across three groups. Research limitations/implications The manipulation of this research is constrained with two treatments in addition to the common pitfall of social desired responses of self-report. Practical implications Theoretically, this study empirically explores tax minimisation dimensions and provides new insights that only illegal tax minimisation is at maximum under the prevailing negative antagonistic climate, but not for legal tax minimisation. Second, the effect of tax climate represented by trust and power on enforced compliance is minimal, as compared to the strong effect of positive synergistic climate on voluntary compliance. As for policy implications, possible guidelines and interventions are outlined to policy makers which would lead to a better quality of compliance behaviour. Originality/value This study operationalises and manipulates tax climate from perceptions of trust, legitimate power and coercive power. It also further affirms the prior inconsistent findings in respect of tax behavioural intentions due to sampling group and cultural differences

Share price reaction on corporate tax reforms in China

This paper elaborates on the changes in corporate taxation in China to accommodate the government's fiscal expenditure, specifically, the study highlights the effect of major corporate tax reforms in China on firms' share price. The result shows that the price reactions are significantly positive/ negative to corporate tax rate decreases/increases, relatively related to different taxpayer categories. This finding is not in line with the theory of Modigliani and Miller (1958; 1963), which may be due to a larger tax benefit being gained from the tax cut. The correlations between price changes and three firm factors (risk, firm size, debt-equity ratio) among the groups are statistically significant, further validating the result. These findings add to the growing literature seeking to understand China's capital market behaviour and also serves as a test of tax effect involving corporate tax

Does disclosure of enforcement strategies affect tax minimisation? a multi-method approach

Tax gap and tax legitimacy are major concerns in every tax jurisdiction. There are inconsistent findings on the impact of legality and probability of detection on non-compliance behaviour. This study combines economic and socio-psychological elements by exploring how do disclosures of enforcement strategies and legality affect tax minimisation under different tax climate. Multi-method approach is applied with a classroom experiment and a survey which comprises three subgroups, namely postgraduate, employed, and self-employed group. It is discovered that, the experimental subjects assigned under the antagonistic climate will carry on with their tax minimisation decision regardless of the disclosures of enforcements and legality. Interestingly, while such disclosure of enforcements is significant to ‘postgraduate’ and ‘employed’ survey respondents under both climates, legality is only significant to both subgroups under synergistic climate. Without any significant relationships between disclosures and minimisation, self-employed individuals are unresponsive towards enforcements probably because it is easier for them to manipulate their reported income. In sum, perhaps other socio-psychological factors should be prioritised in addition to stringent enforcement to reduce illegal tax minimisation

Leverage effect and switching of market efficiency post goods and services tax (GST) imposition

This paper investigates the leverage effect and switching of market efficiency after the GST imposition on fee-based financial services in Bursa Malaysia and Australian Securities Exchange (ASX). The sample in this paper comprises of public listed companies for the period of one year before and after the GST imposition. GJR-GARCH is employed to evaluate the asymmetry response that is associated with the negative news shocks. To assess the effect of transactional efficiency on the informational efficiency and the structural change of time-varying volatility, SGARCH is adopted. This research reveals the presence of leverage effect in developing and developed market. The GST imposition on fee-based financial services significantly reduces the informational efficiency in Bursa Malaysia, but not in ASX. To boost the tax revenues generated from the financial sector, the policymakers in the developed markets (similar to ASX) should contemplate imposing GST on the fee-based financial services without affecting the stability of the stock market. The investors in thin markets (such as Bursa Malaysia) could forecast the stock returns of the thin market upon GST imposition on fee-based financial services

The effect of goods and services tax (GST) imposition on stock market overreaction and trading volume in Malaysia and Australia

This paper investigates the GST imposition effect on stock overreaction and trading volume in Bursa Malaysia and Australian Securities Exchange (ASX). To evaluate the stock overreaction, t-test, Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test and Mann-Whitney U-Test are employed to analyse the market-adjusted abnormal returns. The homogeneity of stock trading volume is assessed by block resampling bootstrapping, t-test and regression. Consistent with the Overreaction Hypothesis, this research reveals that all arbitrage portfolios over one-month interval in Bursa Malaysia are able to generate signifcant abnormal profits. This infers the profitability of implementing short-term contrarian strategy in the Malaysian stock market. However, the analysis for ASX shows the opposite. Additionally, GST imposition reduces the trading volume in Bursa Malaysia but not in ASX. This empirical result will be of interest to the policymakers who are considering imposing tax on fee-based financial services, as well as the investors and fund managers who are concern about profits maximisation