中文摘要
本文研究税收可扣除性对递延高管薪酬决策的影响，利用一项可信外生的税收变化，该变化提高了首席财务官（CFO）非业绩型薪酬的可扣除性，而对递延的非税决定因素没有影响。采用双重差分研究设计，我发现相对于同一公司中首席执行官（CEO）以及薪酬最高的非CEO且非CFO高管的递延薪酬，CFO的递延薪酬在税收变化后显著下降。这一发现在边际税率更高、从而递延的税收收益更大的公司中更为明显。进一步检验表明，税收可扣除性还影响公司对非业绩型薪酬的决策，且CFO的总薪酬似乎因递延减少而下降。本文由会计学领域编辑Shivaram Rajgopal接受。补充材料：数据文件可在 https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2020.01483 获取。
Abstract
I study the influence of tax deductibility on decisions to defer executive compensation by exploiting a plausibly exogenous tax change that increases the deductibility of the chief financial officer’s (CFO’s) nonperformance-based compensation, with no impact on the nontax determinants of deferrals. Using a difference-in-differences research design, I find that CFO deferred compensation significantly decreases after the tax change, relative to the deferrals of the chief executive officer (CEO) and the highest paid non-CEO and non-CFO executive in the same firm. This finding is more pronounced for firms with higher marginal tax rates and thus greater tax benefits of deferrals. Additional tests show that tax deductibility also influences firms’ decisions on nonperformance-based compensation and that CFO total pay appears to decline in response to decreased deferrals. This paper was accepted by Shivaram Rajgopal, accounting. Supplemental Material: The data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2020.01483 .