Navigating the emerging Digital Technology: A strategical rethinking of corporate tax avoidance

This PhD dissertation investigates the role of digital technology in tax research across different stakeholder levels, including corporate taxpayers and tax authorities. First, it provides evidence about (i) the effects of digital technology on corporate tax avoidance. In addition, it sheds light on the role of crypto in accounting, tax accounting, and tax policy by analysing: (i) the risk disclosures of corporate crypto holders; (ii) the effects of corporate crypto holding of ICT industry on unrecognised tax losses; and (iii) the policy-making process underlying the fiscal treatment of crypto. The study employs multiple methodologies. First, an Integrative Literature Review combined with an Ecosystem approach is used to conduct a critical review of the literature on the impact of digital technology on corporate tax avoidance. Second, the risk disclosures of corporate crypto holders are analysed using the qualitative approach of thematic analysis. Third, to investigate the corporate crypto holding on unrecognised tax losses, the study applies (i) linear probability model, (ii) probit regression analysis, and (iii) complementary log-log regression. Finally, to analyse the policy-making process, questionnaires were administered to accountants and tax experts in digital field, drawing on Kingdon’s (1984) multiple streams framework. The findings, respectively throughout the four chapters, demonstrate that (i) digital technology plays a multifaceted role in the tax system and facilitates a shift in corporate business models toward more intangible forms of economic activity; (ii) the risk disclosures of corporate crypto holders vary according to their different business lines and covers both the mandatory and voluntary risk disclosure; (iii) the crypto exposure is significant and positively associated with the probability to disclose the unrecognised tax losses; and (iv) how the readiness of policy and political environment is pivotal for the adoption of effective policies surrounding the crypto. This PhD thesis contributes to the emerging literature on digital technology and crypto across multiple fields of study, demonstrating how these developments are reshaping tax accounting towards a paradigm of “digital tax accounting.” Moreover, it highlights the dominant role of crypto and shows how their intangibility and associated risks challenge existing accounting and tax regulatory frameworks. It is a call for accounting and tax regulators who are finding the right recognition of crypto and the related transactions.