Corporate tax disclosure: A review of concepts, theories, constraints, and benefits

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to offer an impression of the issues raised by the disclosure of companies’ tax information by supplying existing and historical viewpoints from the aspects of concepts, theory, constraints, benefits and measurements. We are concerned that full disclosure of organizations’ tax information could result in firms weakening tax information, hampering tax enforcement, and maybe, in a weakened structure, disclosing private data that could give a competitive benefit to those organizations that are not requested to do such a disclosure. Hence, some studies do not underpin full disclosure. On the other hand, full tax disclosure could have numerous beneficial impacts. It might put pressure on regulators to develop the tax system and it might incite companies to oppose aggressive tax decrease strategies. We anticipate and expect interested parties to take into consideration the best practices of tax disclosure in implementing their future plans.