The Associations Between Book-Tax Differences and Bank Loan Contracting

Abstract

過去文獻指出會計資訊品質會影響債務契約之設計。本研究則從財稅差異的角度捕捉債務人的會計資訊品質，探討財稅差異與貸款利率、財務限制條款之使用數量與抵押擔保品之要求是否有關聯。本研究以2000 年至2010年台灣上市公司的銀行貸款為樣本，研究結果發現：第一、財稅差異與貸款利率呈正相關、與財務限制條款使用的數量呈負相關、與要求提供抵押品呈正相關。第二、若將財稅差異拆解為暫時性差異與永久性差異，則永久性差異與債務契約的關聯性顯著大於暫時性差異。本研究發現財稅差異與銀行貸款決策有關，而台灣財稅差異與債務契約的關聯主要是來自因租稅奬勵及免稅所得造成的永久性差異。

Existing literature suggests that the quality of a firm’s financial reporting is related to the design of loan contracts. The objective of this paper is to examine whether and how a borrower’s accounting quality, as proxied by book-tax differences (hereafter BTD), affects the design of loan contracts, such as loan interest rates, the number of financial covenants, and the provision of collateral. Based on a sample of syndicated loan contracts issued by Taiwan listed firms during years 2000 to 2010, this study finds that BTD levels are associated with the design of loan contracts. Specifically, when the extent of a borrower’s BTD increases, bank loan interest rates increase significantly; banks are less likely to use accounting-based financial covenants in loan contracts; and banks are more likely to require collateral. Further, after disaggregating BTD into permanent and temporary subcomponents, we find that the effect of the permanent differences on loan contracts is greater than that of the temporary differences. We find that banks may take into consideration the information contained in the borrowers’ BTD when designing loan contract terms. In addition, the differential loan terms due to the BTD is driven mainly by permanent difference.