IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/accfor/v37y2013i1p15-28.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Smoke and mirrors: Corporate social responsibility and tax avoidance—A reply to Hasseldine and Morris

Author

Listed:
  • Sikka, Prem

Abstract

This paper is a reply to a comment by John Hasseldine and Gregory Morris on the “Smoke and Mirrors: Corporate Social Responsibility and Tax Avoidance” paper published in Accounting Forum 2010: 34(3/4): 153–168. The original paper drew attention to the gap between corporate talk of social responsibility and actual practices, which promote tax avoidance/evasion. Instead of critiquing the Smoke and Mirrors paper, Hasseldine and Morris raise a number of random and often unrelated issues, including interpretation of law, tax statistics, regulation of tax agents, the role of accountants, policies of the state and the human rights of corporations, just to mention a few. This paper responds in kind and argues that many of their comments are ill informed.

Suggested Citation

  • Sikka, Prem, 2013. "Smoke and mirrors: Corporate social responsibility and tax avoidance—A reply to Hasseldine and Morris," Accounting forum, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 15-28.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:accfor:v:37:y:2013:i:1:p:15-28
    DOI: 10.1016/j.accfor.2012.09.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0155998212000506
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.accfor.2012.09.002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Panayiota Lyssiotou & Panos Pashardes & Thanasis Stengos, 2004. "Estimates of the black economy based on consumer demand approaches," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(497), pages 622-640, July.
    2. Jim Stewart, 2008. "Financial flows and treasury management firms in Ireland," Accounting Forum, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(3), pages 199-212, September.
    3. Hasseldine, John & Morris, Gregory, 2013. "Corporate social responsibility and tax avoidance: A comment and reflection," Accounting forum, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 1-14.
    4. Prem Sikka, 2010. "Smoke and mirrors: Corporate social responsibility and tax avoidance," Accounting Forum, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(3-4), pages 153-168, September.
    5. John Hasseldine & Gregory Morris, 2013. "Corporate social responsibility and tax avoidance: A comment and reflection," Accounting Forum, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(1), pages 1-14, March.
    6. Brunsson, Nils, 1993. "Ideas and actions: Justification and hypocrisy as alternatives to control," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 18(6), pages 489-506, August.
    7. J.C. Sharman, 2005. "South Pacific tax havens: From leaders in the race to the bottom to laggards in the race to the top?," Accounting Forum, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(3), pages 311-323, September.
    8. Gracia, Louise & Oats, Lynne, 2012. "Boundary work and tax regulation: A Bourdieusian view," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 304-321.
    9. Sikka, Prem, 2011. "Accounting for human rights: The challenge of globalization and foreign investment agreements," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 22(8), pages 811-827.
    10. Stewart, Jim, 2008. "Financial flows and treasury management firms in Ireland," Accounting forum, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 199-212.
    11. Mitchell, A. & Sikka, P. & Willmott, H., 1998. "Sweeping it under the carpet: The role of accountancy firms in moneylaundering," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 23(5-6), pages 589-607.
    12. Arnold, Patricia J. & Sikka, Prem, 2001. "Globalization and the state-profession relationship: the case the Bank of Credit and Commerce International," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 475-499, August.
    13. Sikka, Prem & Willmott, Hugh, 2010. "The dark side of transfer pricing: Its role in tax avoidance and wealth retentiveness," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 342-356.
    14. Sikka, Prem, 2010. "Smoke and mirrors: Corporate social responsibility and tax avoidance," Accounting forum, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 153-168.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Muhammad Faisal Majid & Muhammad Meraj & Muhammad Shujaat Mubarik, 2022. "In the Pursuit of Environmental Sustainability: The Role of Environmental Accounting," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(11), pages 1-20, May.
    2. Hongdan Zhao & Jing Xu & Yuanhua Chen & Wenyuan Sun, 2020. "The Employee Attributions of Corporate Hypocrisy in Corporate Social Responsibility: An Explore Research Based on Grounded Theory," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(2), pages 21582440209, May.
    3. Anesa, Mattia & Gillespie, Nicole & Spee, A. Paul & Sadiq, Kerrie, 2019. "The legitimation of corporate tax minimization," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 17-39.
    4. Ylönen, Matti & Laine, Matias, 2015. "For logistical reasons only? A case study of tax planning and corporate social responsibility reporting," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 5-23.
    5. Walaa Wahid ElKelish*, 2023. "Accounting for Corporate Human Rights: Literature Review and Future Insights," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 33(2), pages 203-226, June.
    6. Jones, Chris & Temouri, Yama & Cobham, Alex, 2018. "Tax haven networks and the role of the Big 4 accountancy firms," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 177-193.
    7. Fallan, Even & Fallan, Lars, 2019. "Corporate tax behaviour and environmental disclosure: Strategic trade-offs across elements of CSR?," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 35(3).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Carola Hillenbrand & Kevin Guy Money & Chris Brooks & Nicole Tovstiga, 2019. "Corporate Tax: What Do Stakeholders Expect?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 158(2), pages 403-426, August.
    2. Ylönen, Matti & Laine, Matias, 2015. "For logistical reasons only? A case study of tax planning and corporate social responsibility reporting," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 5-23.
    3. AnnMarie Bennett & Breda Murphy, 2017. "The Tax Profession: Tax Avoidance and the Public Interest," Economics Department Working Paper Series n286-17.pdf, Department of Economics, National University of Ireland - Maynooth.
    4. Nirmala Devi Mohanadas, 2019. "A Theoretical Review on Corporate Tax Avoidance: Shareholder Approach versus Stakeholder Approach," GATR Journals jfbr160, Global Academy of Training and Research (GATR) Enterprise.
    5. Kumari Juddoo & Issam Malki & Sudha Mathew & Sheeja Sivaprasad, 2023. "An impact investment strategy," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 61(1), pages 177-211, July.
    6. Robert Bird & Karie Davis-Nozemack, 2018. "Tax Avoidance as a Sustainability Problem," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 151(4), pages 1009-1025, September.
    7. Otusanya, Olatunde Julius, 2011. "The role of multinational companies in tax evasion and tax avoidance: The case of Nigeria," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 316-332.
    8. Quentin Clair, 2019. "Acceptable levels of tax risk as a metric of corporate tax responsibility: theory, and a survey of practice," Nordic Tax Journal, Sciendo, vol. 2019(1), pages 1-15, January.
    9. Gunn, Anna F. & Koch, Dirk-Jan & Weyzig, Francis, 2020. "A methodology to measure the quality of tax avoidance case studies: Findings from the Netherlands," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 39(C).
    10. Fallan, Even & Fallan, Lars, 2019. "Corporate tax behaviour and environmental disclosure: Strategic trade-offs across elements of CSR?," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 35(3).
    11. Antonetti, Paolo & Anesa, Mattia, 2017. "Consumer reactions to corporate tax strategies: The role of political ideology," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 1-10.
    12. Sikka, Prem, 2015. "The corrosive effects of neoliberalism on the UK financial crises and auditing practices: A dead-end for reforms," Accounting forum, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 1-18.
    13. Abdul-Baki, Zayyad & Uthman, Ahmad B. & Kasum, Abubakar S., 2021. "The role of accounting and accountants in the oil subsidy corruption scandal in Nigeria," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    14. Simplice A. Asongu & Joseph I. Uduji & Elda N. Okolo-Obasi, 2019. "Transfer pricing and corporate social responsibility: arguments, views and agenda," Mineral Economics, Springer;Raw Materials Group (RMG);Luleå University of Technology, vol. 32(3), pages 353-363, November.
    15. Argilés-Bosch, Josep Mª & Ravenda, Diego & Garcia-Blandón, Josep, 2021. "E-commerce and labour tax avoidance," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    16. Anesa, Mattia & Gillespie, Nicole & Spee, A. Paul & Sadiq, Kerrie, 2019. "The legitimation of corporate tax minimization," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 17-39.
    17. Charl de Villiers & Matteo La Torre & Vida Botes, 2022. "Accounting and social capital: A review and reflections on future research opportunities," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 62(4), pages 4485-4521, December.
    18. Lucas Amaral Lauriano & Juliane Reinecke & Michael Etter, 2022. "When Aspirational Talk Backfires: The Role of Moral Judgements in Employees’ Hypocrisy Interpretation," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 181(4), pages 827-845, December.
    19. Brooks, Chris & Godfrey, Chris & Hillenbrand, Carola & Money, Kevin, 2016. "Do investors care about corporate taxes?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 218-248.
    20. Hopper, Trevor & Lassou, Philippe & Soobaroyen, Teerooven, 2017. "Globalisation, accounting and developing countries," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 125-148.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:accfor:v:37:y:2013:i:1:p:15-28. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/accounting-forum .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.