• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.190-198
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• 2007

This study is to analysis the application statue of account and non-account information of the tax investigators, who are charging significant roles in the decision making process of the tax investigation and to verify whether work factors, regarding work performance, affect on the application of the taxation discretion. Following to verified results of the study, tax investigators apply the income statement most frequently and significantly consider the financial statement with annexed specification from the data to expedite an efficient tax investigation. In a selection of non-account information, work group preferentially considers the disorder of job performance. The analysis of primary factor embodies that the professionalism, regarding legal or institutional work performance, and the working environment intimately effect on the tax discretion application.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.15 no.12
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• pp.283-291
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• 2017

This Study analyzes the predictability of accounting information from mandatory K-IFRS adoption using the K-IFRS reconciliations information. We use the sample of 2,557 firm-year Korea listed companies belonging to non-financial corporate sector during 2010-2016. Specifically, we examine whether K-IFS reconciliation would improve or reduce the predicting power for future earnings after K-IFRS adoption. The results of empirical analyses show that reconciliation information from discretionary judgement tend to reduce the predicting power of K-IFRS based accounting earnings for future earnings. This result indicates that managers are likely to use the adjustments process to reconcile K-GAAP accounting numbers with corresponding K-IFRS as means to realize the various private utility. This study is expected to provide useful information by suggesting the need for more rigid screening schemes for the K-IFRS reconciliation process and also for adequate measures to be taken to ensure that the interests of the outside investors are properly protected.

• Korean small business review
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.123-146
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• 2020

This study, targeting KOSDAQ-listed companies, examined the relationship between variability of accruals and corporate characteristics. First, the analysis results show that executives of companies with high debt ratios are more likely to violate debt contracts, so there is a strong temptation to use discretionary accrual items. Second, for companies with large volatility in operating cash flows, Executives of these companies are strongly inclined to utilize accruals for the purpose of abuse of discretion. Third, the larger the company, the more sensitive it is to political costs, so it is less tempted to use the accruals item than a smaller company. Fourth, the corporate age is thought to be the maturity of the company, Executives of such companies have little room to use accruals to abuse their discretion. Fifth, in the case of profit dummy variables, the companies reporting losses have more temporary accrual items than those reporting profits, so this increases the uncertainty in their accounting information than the latter. Sixth, for those companies that are indicated as inappropriate as a result of audit, the more likely their executives are to use the accrual items, and the lower the quality of their accounting profits is. Lastly, Companies audited by 4 Big domestic accounting firms have less discretionary accrual fluctuations than companies audited by non-big 4 accounting firms. Thus, it was found that the accrual amount allows the discretion of corporate executives differently according to the characteristics of the company.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.169-190
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• 2011

Recent academic studies have investigated book-tax differences as an indicator of earnings management. Tax accounting texts claim that the differences between pre-tax financial reporting earnings and taxable income can provide information about current earnings, and the large differences between book and taxable incomes are an indicator of low-quality financial reporting earnings. This study investigates the effect of internal control system over book and tax difference using the KOSPI and KOSDAQ firms from 2006 to 2008. The empirical findings are consistent with a weakness of internal control system being associated with higher book-tax difference. That means a firm which has material weakness in the internal control system allows for more malpractice. In addition to this, If the managers tries to the efficient tax decrease strategy, book-tax difference can be large. Which in turn leads us to observe a positive relation between the weakness of internal control system and intensity of book-tax difference. Overall, we interpret this evidence as indicating that the failure of the internal control system can effect not only investors and creditors but also tax authorities. And It emphasizes that a more effective internal control system linked with sound corporate governance.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.51-68
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• 2016

In this paper, we aim to analyze the effect of accounting policy change subsequent to the adoption of K-IFRS in Korea, whereby the firms are required to recognize impairment losses on goodwill on a periodic basis rather than to amortize over a specific period. As a principle-based accounting standard, the K-IFRS expands the scope of fair value measurement with a view to enhance the relevance and timeliness of accounting information. In the same vein, intangibles with indefinite useful life, of which goodwill is an example, are subject to regulatory impairment tests at least once a year. Related literature on the impact of mandatory change in goodwill policy document that impairment recognition is more likely to be practiced opportunistically, mainly because managers have a greater discretion to conduct the tests under K-IFRS. However, existing literature examined the frequency and/or magnitude of the goodwill impairment before versus after the K-IFRS adoption, failing to notice the impairment symptoms at individual firm level. Borrowing the definition of impairment symptoms suggested by Ramanna and Watts(2012), this study performs a series of tests to determine whether the goodwill impairment recognition achieves the goal of communicating timelier information under the K-IFRS regime. Using 947 firm-year observations from domestic companies listed in KRX and KOSDAQ markets from 2008 to 2011, we document overall delays in recognizing impairment losses on goodwill after the adoption of K-IFRS relative to prior period, based on logistic and OLS regression analyses. The results are qualitatively similar in robustness tests, which use alternative proxy for goodwill impairment symptom. Afore-mentioned results indicate that managers are likely to take advantage of the increased discretion to recognize the impairment losses on goodwill rather than to provide timelier information on impairment, inconsistent with the goal of regulatory authority, which is in line with the improvement of timeliness and relevance of accounting information in conjunction with the full implementation of K-IFRS. This study contributes to the extant literature on goodwill impairment from a methodological viewpoint. We believe that the method employed in this paper potentially diminishes the bias inherent in researches relying on ex post impairment recognition, by conducting tests based on ex ante impairment symptoms, which allows direct examination of the timeliness changes between before and after K-IFRS adoption.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.16 no.11
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• pp.267-274
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• 2018

This study examines the effect of managerial ability on managers' opportunistic reporting discretion in recognizing the goodwill impairment losses after the adoption of K-IFRS. Cross-sectional regression results show that goodwill impairment losses are not recognized timely at the time of the goodwill impairment symptom, but rather managers make bad use of goodwill impairment losses as tools of income smoothing and big-bath. Managerial ability is not directly related to the recognition of goodwill impairment losses, but firms with more able managers recognize timely goodwill impairment losses when the symptom of goodwill impairment exists, and they use less income smoothing when the firms' expected pre-impairment earnings are abnormally high. This study is the first research to consider the relationship between managerial ability and manager' earnings management in goodwill impairment accounting.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.209-247
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• 2004

Although various publicly reserved funds have recently come to the fore of academic and policy-making attention in Korea, researchers rarely take up the issue of the reserve fund retained from annual profits by the central bank (i.e., the Bank of Korea). Starting with the general public choice premise that bureaucrats seek to maximize their discretionary budget, this paper first provides a theoretical reasoning why central bank's bureaucrats would prefer retaining annual profits to turning them to the Treasury. The major tenet to be emphasized is that retained profits as a reserve fund can give the central bankers discretionary power in their disposition. In particular, we focus on the close relationship between the reserve fund and the discount windows. The latter, as a monetary instrument, has traditionally been demonstrated to cause secrecy, arbitrariness, and other bureaucratic amenities in the previous literature. Subsequently, this paper, based on 61 countries data, empirically verifies that the central bank's reserve fund is at least partially used to additionally increase the discount windows. Since an excessive use of discount windows results in inflationary bias, we conclude the paper with some policy suggestions to have such bureaucratic power of discretion in check. This paper, if in its experimental nature yet, is expected to shed a critical implication for establishing the meaningful independence of the central bank to a host of countries.