Does audit quality influence tax avoidance and ownership structure?

This study investigated how audit quality affects the association between corporate tax avoidance and ownership structure. To achieve the objective, the study employed ordinary least square regression with robust estimation on a data set of 360 firm-year observations of non-financial companies listed on the Nigerian Exchange Group (NGX) spanning from 2018 to 2022. The study found that the nexus between ownership structure and tax avoidance moderated by audit quantity greatly affects tax avoidance. Thus, indicating that higher audit quality has a considerable influence in addressing tax avoidance. The study contributes to the existing literature. First, that ownership structure influences corporate tax avoidance among nonfinancial firms. Second, audit quality tends to affect the relationship between ownership structure and tax planning strategies. The study concludes that audit quality is an important tool that can be used to enhance tax planning. Based on the findings, policymakers should strategies ways and means of enhancing audit quality.