Corporate Ownership Structure and Aggressive Tax Planning of Listed Manufacturing Companies in Nigeria

Despite the attention gained in economics, finance and accounting, the empirical findings on the major drivers of aggressive tax planning and its implication remains contentious. Therefore, this study examined the effect of corporate ownership structure on aggressive tax planning of manufacturing companies listed on the Nigerian Exchange Group. Correlation research design was adopted while block-holding ownership, family ownership, institutional ownership, foreign ownership, managerial ownership, and effective tax rate were used as proxies of corporate ownership and aggressive tax planning respectively. Data was collected from financial statements of 26 listed manufacturing firms from 2015-2024, and analysed using Panel regression. The results of the analyses revealed positive and significant impact of block-holding ownership and government ownership on aggressive tax planning, while family ownership and foreign ownership show positive but insignificant impact on aggressive tax planning of the firms. However, institutional ownership and managerial ownerships show negative and significant impact on aggressive tax planning of the companies over the period of the study. Hence, the study concludes that corporate ownership structure has positive significant effect on aggressive tax planning of listed manufacturing companies in Nigeria. Based on these findings, the study recommends that tax authorities in Nigeria should discourage block-holding ownership and government ownership since were found to have significant positive effect on aggressive tax practice of the companies. However foreign ownership, family ownership, institutional ownership and managerial ownerships should be encouraged since were found to have insignificant effect on aggressive tax practices. This study contributes to knowledge been the first study to observed the integrated effect of family ownership, institutional ownership, government ownership, block-holding ownership, foreign ownership, and managerial ownership on aggressive tax planning. It further sheds more light on how changes in ownership structure affect management decision regards to tax planning.