Does Ownership Structure Affect Tax Avoidance?

Abstract

Company owners are responsible for monitoring and making policies, including tax avoidance policies. This study aims to establish empirical evidence on the effect of ownership identities such as family ownership, institutional ownership, managerial ownership, and government ownership on tax avoidance practices. The purposive sampling method was employed from datasets covering non-financial firms listed on the Indonesian Stock Exchange during 2018-2021 leaving a total sample of 352 companies for the samples. Findings indicate that high family ownership in civil law jurisdictions encourages tax avoidance. Meanwhile, tax avoidance tendencies are reduced because institutional owners' breadth of knowledge and access to information prevents them from acting impulsively. Managerial ownership makes managers both agents and principles, thus suppressing short-term opportunistic desires, including tax avoidance practices. Lastly, no evidence that government ownership significantly affects tax avoidance practices.