The Mitigating Effect of Financial Analyst Coverage on Tax Aggressiveness

This study examines the relationship between financial analyst coverage and tax aggressiveness among Brazilian companies listed on the B3 stock exchange from 2010 to 2021. Using the number of analysts covering a company as a proxy for information asymmetry, we investigate how analyst scrutiny influences corporate tax practices. Our analysis employs panel data regression on 110 non-financial companies, measuring tax aggressiveness through Book-Tax Differences (BTD) and Effective Tax Rates (ETR). We find that greater analyst coverage is associated with reduced tax aggressiveness—that is, increased analyst scrutiny correlates with lower BTDs and higher ETRs, indicating a reduction in aggressive tax planning practices. These results contrast with some recent findings in the Brazilian context but are largely consistent with international evidence. Robustness checks confirm that these associations hold after controlling for several firm-specific factors. This study contributes to the literature by providing empirical evidence from an emerging market and by employing a continuous measure of analyst coverage. While our results are limited to the Brazilian market, they underscore the critical role of financial analysts as external monitors. Further investigation in different market environments is needed to generalize these findings. Ultimately, our research highlights the importance of analyst coverage in mitigating information asymmetry and enhancing corporate accountability in tax reporting.