EARNINGS MANAGEMENT AND THE RELATIONSHIP WITH THE TAXABLE PROFIT OF THE BRAZILIAN PUBLICLY-TRADED COMPANIES

Abstract

Due to the connection between financial accounting with disclosure purpose and income taxation, it is supposed that tax planning actions may interfere in the accounting information disclosed. Thus, the quest for taxation reduction may have represented earnings management in accounting information for disclosure. The goal of this study is to verify whether economic incentives related to taxation, measured by taxable income, affected the earnings management level in Brazilian publicly-traded companies. A quantitative analysis involving the profit tax variable and the earnings management measurement found out by the econometric model of Kang-Sivaramakrishnan (1995), with data from the period from 1999 to 2007. In addition, other variables were used to control and delimit possible specification errors. The results indicate that there is evidence of a negative relationship between taxable income and earnings management. It is inferred that the managers’ search for tax savings was responsible for affecting the level of earnings management for accounting disclosure purposes, revealing the effect that the application of accounting practice to taxation standards had on the accounting information in that period.