Abstract

Tax planning exploits both opportunity and loopholes in government tax policies and often involves the use of legal and professional arrangements, wherein organizations shift the burden of tax within the statutorily required limit, some of the arrangements include altering the information content of the taxable income which may distort the fairness of the financial statement. This work examined the impact of tax planning on information content of taxable income. The research adopted survey and expost-facto design. Financial statements of selected companies from Manufacturing, banking and insurance sectors, between 2003 and 2012 were analyzed. The population of the study is 240 listed companies on the Nigerian Stock Exchange market as at April, 2014. Using simple and stratified sampling techniques, fifteen companies were sampled for the study, five companies from each of the sectors under study. The hypothesis for the study states that tax planning has no significant effect on information content of taxable income, the result indicate that tax planning exerts no significant negative effect on reported earnings ( P – val = 0.930 > 0.05), the coefficient of information content is -0.080. R2

• 067, which means that 6.7% of change in tax saving, which is the surrogate of tax planning can be attributed to information content of taxable income. The study therefore concluded that tax planning has no significant effect on information content of taxable. It was recommended that tax payers should be encouraged to reveal all available information that will assist in the detrmination of their tax liability as concealment of such is tantarmount to tax evasion.

Introduction

Despite the fact that government at various level can not survive in attending to the request of their citizens without taxation, attitude of tax payers to their civic responsibilities have been in negative. It ranges from minimising the tax payable, to deliberate decision not to pay at all.

Tax planning is a veritable tool at the disposal of tax payer to reduce the burden of tax paid or payable. It is defined by Kiabel and Akenbor (2014) as any action that must be taken by a business entity to inflate taxable income or reported earnings in a given period before tax loss expires. It is perceived indeed in different ways in that it includes various aspects which include arranging accrued income, expenditureto be incurred, how various investment plans can be made, as well as retirement plan to include all statutory deductions (AbdulWahab, 2010). It is usually undertaken in order to have access to all exemptions, deductions and rebates as it is contained in the relevant legislations.

Avl-yonnah, (2005) said that, tax planning arrogates more income to the relevant tax authorities and leads to tax savings for the organization. It often involves huge cost, this is the concept of under-sheltering puzzle as explained by (Weisbach, 2002). Clausing, (2003) is of the opinion that the business entity concept to some extent can create the problem of double taxation, whereby tax is payable on the dividend in the hand of the shareholders which is paid from after tax earnings. The planning strategy to be employed by various organizations according to Rohaya (2010) depends on the size, ability and the nature of the companies. Effective tax planning minimizes the tax payment and consequently increases the after tax rate of return (Alshular and Grubert, 2005).

Tax evasion involves the actual intention to dodge the amount of tax payable through a dubious means to avoid the amount due to the relevant tax authority. The basic issue is who actually the beneficiary of tax evasion is? Alm (2013) states that the evaders benefit in its entirety.

Tax planning exploits both opportunity and loopholes in government tax policies and often involves the use of legal and professional arrangements, wherein organizations shift the burden of tax within the statutorily required limit (Bruce, Deskin and Fox, 2005). To the relevant tax authority, tax planning will undoubtedly lead to elasticity of taxable income.

The causal relationship between application of the tax planning strategies and the information content of taxable income in Nigeria need to be empirically established. The objective of this study is to determine the effect of tax planning on the information content of taxable income of companies in Nigeria.