National Repository of Grey Literature 2 records found  Search took 0.00 seconds. 
Earnings Management under Financial Distress Conditions, the Effect of Tax Considerations
Britskiy, Andrey ; Novák, Jiří (advisor) ; Palanský, Miroslav (referee)
This master thesis attempts to contribute to the existing earnings management literature by examining whether tax avoidance incentives affect opportunistic accounting choices in distress conditions. To address this issue, it investigates 2668 companies in the quarters around breach of debt covenant spanning from 1996 to 2006. This allows to analyze two distress scenarios: first, whether the companies having the opportunity to minimize tax expenses and thus improve their financial stability, would deliberately switch from engaging in aggressive upwards real earnings management to tax considerations to mitigate the potential consequences of technical default; second, whether the companies facing increased lender's scrutiny after subsequent violation are compelled to switch by the creditor. The results indicate that tax considerations do not deter misreporting in the quarters around debt covenant violation. This thesis further provides evidence against the debt covenant hypothesis: the companies in the analyzed sample engaged in negative revenue manipulation in the quarters of new breach of debt covenant and in the quarters in which the firms remained in violation. In additional analysis, it was found that the above relationship is more prominent for the companies exhibiting poor financial performance.
The Effect of Litigation Risk on Earnings Management in the Proximity to Debt Covenant Violation
Britskiy, Andrey ; Novák, Jiří (advisor) ; Červinka, Michal (referee)
This bachelor thesis aims to establish a relationship between earnings management in proximity to debt covenant violation and the presence of litigation risk. Central testable concept is Watts and Zimmerman (1990) debt covenant hypothesis according to which managers tend to manipulate earnings to reduce the possibility of violation of their company's debt agreement. This setting allows investigating whether the risk of litigation is an effective regulatory mechanism which improves the contracting usefulness of accounting numbers and better align the interests between creditors and company managers, thus making debt covenants more reliable as monitoring mechanisms. Due to inconclusive results, this thesis was unable to establish whether the threat of litigation can discipline managerial reporting practices and deter misreporting for the companies with substantial debt covenant incentives.

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