The present paper provides new empirical evidence on the relationship between CEO facial masculinity and tax avoidance. We use data from non-financial companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange during the period 2010–2019. The findings suggest that the CEO facial masculinity is positively associated with tax avoidance, which is one of the risky financial decisions. We also conducted a battery of robustness tests, including testing the sample of companies with/without a risk management committee, the interaction with CEO age and big 4 audit firm, the implementation of the tax amnesty in Indonesia, and addressing endogeneity using the propensity score matching. The current measurement of CEO masculinity, which is based on the fWHR of the CEO’s photo, could be further developed by future studies using artificial intelligence (AI) technology. This study contributes to the literature on CEO characteristics by filling in the gaps of biological characteristics associated with tax avoidance decisions. This is the first study investigating the relationship between CEO biological characteristics and tax avoidance.

This study examines the investment efficiency of firms engaging in tax avoidance in Indonesia. We test 2064 firm-year observations of Indonesian listed firms from 2010–2019 and document a positive relationship between tax avoidance and investment efficiency. This study also considers a unique setting of Indonesia as one of the few developing countries that implement tax amnesty. Thus, we test the variables in the period of prime tax amnesty implementation in Indonesia. We document significant results only in the firms that did not participate in tax amnesty during the implementation period. Nevertheless, the results are consistent in several alternative measurements and robust to the Propensity Score Matching regression to handle potential endogeneity. In addition, we discover that the investment efficiency of tax avoidance is salient in both firms prone to underinvestment and overinvestment. These findings extend the literature on tax avoidance and corporate investment. Based on the results, tax authorities should be stricter in handling tax avoidance practices because this practice has a cost-benefit trade-off that allows firms to obtain benefits at the expense of the state’s income if not managed properly.

Chief Financial Officer (CFO) is a chief executive whose responsibilities are related to accounting and audit work. However, there is a downward trend in hiring CFOs with an accounting background. Therefore, we aim to study the relationship between accountant CFO and audit outcomes. This paper use samples of non-financial firms listed on the Indonesia Exchange Stock (IDX) from 2010 to 2018 and using OLS with a cluster by the firm in Stata 17.0 to analyze the relationship between accountant CFO and audit outcomes. We document that accountant CFOs tend to appoint Big4 accounting firms because they demand a higher audit quality. Furthermore, the results suggest that accountant CFOs are more likely to have a higher audit fee, a higher audit quality, and a shorter audit report lag. This finding shows that the accountant CFO can be related to the audit outcomes and this shows how auditors value the accountant CFOs. We expect this paper contributes to enrich the literature on accountant CFO and helps firms in hiring their CFO.