Abstract
This paper investigates the association between the Big 4 accountancy firms and the extent to which multinational enterprises build, manage and maintain their networks of tax haven subsidiaries. We extend internalisation theory and derive a number of hypotheses that are tested using count models on firm-level data. Our key findings demonstrate that there is a strong correlation and causal link between the size of an MNE’s tax haven network and their use of the Big 4. We therefore argue that public policy related to the role of auditors can have a significant impact on the tax avoidance behaviour of MNEs.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 177-193 |
Journal | Journal of World Business |
Volume | 53 |
Issue number | 2 |
Early online date | 8 Nov 2017 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Feb 2018 |
Bibliographical note
© 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/BY/4.0/).Funding: British Academy project (SG143332).
Keywords
- Tax havens, varieties of capitalism, corporate taxation, poisson regression, Big 4 accountancy firms