Does corporate social responsibility moderate the effect of earnings performance and institutional ownership on corporate tax avoidance?

Research aims: This study examines the role of corporate social responsibility in moderating the effect of earnings performance and institutional ownership on corporate tax avoidance of companies in the Investors 33 index between the 2018-2022 period.Design/Methodology/Approach: This study developed and estimated two regression models with panel data of 165 observations. These models were estimated by the random effect estimator.Research findings: This study found that corporate social responsibility strengthens the negative effect of earning performance on corporate tax avoidance. Companies with high earnings performance and those more socially responsible are likely more compliant in paying taxes. It confirms the corporate culture theory in Indonesian companies with relatively high share performance. On the other hand, this study also uncovered that corporate social responsibility increases the positive effect of institutional ownership on corporate tax avoidance. The large percentage of institutional ownership balanced by more corporate social responsibility activities could trigger companies to engage in more significant tax avoidance. These findings indicate that institutional investors of 33 companies in the investors index are more oriented on returns than company reputation.Theoretical contribution/Originality: As far as known, this study is the first to explain the moderating role of corporate social responsibility on the effect of earnings performance and institutional ownership on corporate tax avoidance in the context of companies with high share performance.Practitioner/Policy implication: This study urges the government to supervise the corporate social responsibility activities issued by companies to ensure that they are not generated as a corporate tax avoidance motive .Research limitation/Implication: This study did not check for possible bias caused by outlier data. This study also did not control how institutional investors are represented on the board of commissioners, so the effect of IO tends to be difficult to explain based on this perspective.