Fan,, H. S., Lin, Y. T., and Chen, C. L. 2013. Taiwan SFAS No.35 and Timeliness of Financial Reporting. NTU Management Review, 23 (2): 97-132. https://doi.org/10.6226/NTURM2013.SEP.R10050
Hung-Shu Fan,, Professor, Department of Accounting, Fu Jen Catholic University
Yan-Ting Lin, Assistant Professor, Department of Accounting, Fu Jen Catholic University
Ching-Lung Chen, Professor, Department of Accounting, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology
Abstract
This study aims to investigate the impact of SFAS No.35, which regulates the accounting for the impairment of assets, on financial report lags. Prior studies document that the recognitions of asset impairments would drive stock prices down. In addition, managers might recognize the asset impairments to manipulate earnings, and earnings management would increase audit risk. To reduce this negative influence on stock prices for listed firms and audit risk for auditors, they have motivations to negotiate over the recognition of asset impairments, which, in turn, delays declaring the financial statements. Based on the unbalanced panel data-fixed effect models, the empirical results of this study support the hypothesis that financial report lags increase because of the recognition of an asset impairment, and the larger amount of the asset impairment causes the longer financial report lag. These results provide some evidence to understand the possible economic effect of SFAS No.35 on financial reporting timeliness.
Keywords
SFAS No.35financial reporting timelinessunbalanced panel data regression analysis