Udeme Enobong Eshiet a Nmesirionye, Josephine A. b Okezie Stella O. c Ekwe Michael Chidiebele d
Doctoral Student, Department of Accounting, Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike,
Nigeria, udemeeshiet@aksu.edu.ng
b Department of Accounting, Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, Nigeria.
c Department of Accounting, Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, Nigeria
d Department of Accounting, Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, Nigeria
The aim of this study was to explore the effect of corporate governance attributes on tax sheltering of
sampled non-financial listed firms in Nigeria for the period 2010 to 2019. Corporate governance attributes that were employed in this study included; Board Independence, Board Ownership, and Firm Age which also represented the independent variables. Non-Debt Tax Shield (a proxy for tax shelter) as seen in prior related literature was employed as the dependent variable. Ex-post facto and descriptive research design were both employed in the methodology. Specifically, the study employed Robust Standard Error Regression Analyses estimator with major emphases on its marginal effect to test the study hypotheses. The findings supports that Board Ownership is a strong and significant indicator necessary to drive down tax sheltering activities in Nigeria. Therefore, in line with the outcome obtained, this study recommended that stakeholders of non-financial listed companies seeking to lower tax shelter practices may need to consider introducing more equity ownership for its Directors suggesting that encouraging greater managerial shareholding will mitigate aggressive practices of tax planning thereby reducing owner-manager conflict within listed non-financial firms in Nigeria.
Keywords; Corporate Governance, Tax Sheltering, Non-Debt Tax Shield, Theory, Robust Standard Error
Regression