Tax aggressiveness in private family firms: An agency perspective

• Private family firms are less tax aggressive than nonfamily firms.
• Private family firms with a lower CEO ownership share are relatively more tax aggressive.
• Board effectiveness moderates the CEO ownership share-tax aggressiveness relationship.
• An outside director in the board mitigates the effect of CEO ownership on tax aggressiveness.

This article investigates, from an agency perspective, whether private family firms, compared to private nonfamily firms, are more tax aggressive. Moreover, for private family firms, the effect of the extent of separation between ownership and management on tax aggressiveness is studied. Additionally, we verify whether effective board monitoring moderates this relationship. Using Finnish survey data, results show that private family firms are less tax aggressive than nonfamily firms. For the subsample of private family firms, firms with a lower CEO ownership share are more tax aggressive whereas the presence of an outside director in their board mitigates this direct effect.