M48 - Accounting and Auditing: Government Policy and RegulationReturn

As the corporate world has recently been increasingly held accountable for its non-green behaviour, corporate environmental disclosures (CED) are crucial in informing the relevant stakeholders. Among the factors influencing CED, firm auditors play a pivotal role. Our research investigates the impact of Big Four audit firms on corporate environmental disclosure in China. With unique institutional factors and the most significant carbon emissions globally, China provides an exciting and compelling ground for studying this relationship. For this purpose, we use annual firm-level data of A-listed shares on the Shenzhen and Shanghai stock exchanges and employ the Poisson and negative binomial regression models for empirical analyses. Contrary to the common belief that Big Four audit firms lead to improved disclosure quality, we find that they negatively affect environmental disclosure in China. We also investigate the moderating role of corporate governance and ownership structure in this relationship. A high ratio of state ownership, male directors on the board and institutional investor holding worsen the disclosure quality. However, a high ratio of independent directors mitigates this issue. These findings open new avenues for further research and can guide future policy decisions regarding environmental disclosure in Chinese firms. The Big Four audit firms should be more stringent in their operations and supervise public firms regarding environmental disclosures.

The worldwide adoption of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) has not affected financial reporting only, but it has also impact on taxation systems. Countries with a high level of book-tax conformity (dependence) have to solve whether and at what extent to allow IFRS results for the corporate taxation. The paper deals with the specifics of Czech Republic, which is an example of open small economy with relatively high subordination of accounting to taxation purposes. To allow IFRS in tax fillings of those entities preparing statutory financial statements in compliance with IFRS may thus represent a comparative advantage for Czech economy. We hypothesize that usage of IFRS for tax purposes is "win-win-win" situation, as it may (1) significantly decrease the compliance tax costs of IFRS entities; (2) increase the capability of tax authorities to supervise the fulfilment of tax duties by IFRS entities; (3) create a favourable tax regime attracting foreign companies to tax their sources of income in the Czech Republic/mitigating the motives of Czech companies to transfer profits abroad. We support our findings by the analysis of micro- and esp. aggregate tax data showing that (a) taxation rules have a greater influence on tax base than accounting profits (b) changes in reported accounting profits are a function of business cycle rather than a function of changing tax rates and/or a function of accounting method choices.

More than EUR 347 million from EU funds was allocated for boosting competitiveness of Czech economy during the time period from 2004 to 2006. The aim of this paper is to evaluate effects of subsidies from programme "Development", which was focused on rising small and medium company competitiveness. Method Benchmark and method Per se were created for this purpose. Analyses confirm that subsidies are drawn by companies with above average rate of competitiveness. On the other hand, competitiveness of these subsidised companies (measured by eight financial indicators) was ostensibly decreasing after drawing the subsidy. The cause for this fact can be found in Czech accounting legislation which creates a dilemma for company managers. Research results show that managers of subsidized companies have probably chosen conservative strategy - the above average EBIT (created thanks to the subsidy) hold in liquid assets and use it for necessary future reinvestment but formally worsen profi tability ratios.