Abstract

This paper’s main objective is to examine the effect of corporate governance on earnings manipulations using BTD proxy. We investigate whether ownership structure board and audit committee characters affect earnings and tax management. Based on a sample of 21 corporations listed on Tunisian stock market during the period 2003-2012, our study employs regression analysis to test the prediction that the governance attributes reduces the likelihood of earnings and tax aggressiveness. We find that the ownership structure is an important corporate governance mechanism that affects BTD. We find that BTD does not vary with board size and the cumulative effect of the function of chief executive and president of the board. We find that the percentage of outside directors is associated with managerial discretion. Finally, we find that the audit committee influences ABTD through the variable relating to the financial expertise of the committee.

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