Wang, C. S., Liao, P. C., and Lin, C. W. 2010. The Impact of the Agents' Professional Background on Incometax Administrative Litigation. NTU Management Review, 20 (2): 173-208
Chuan-San Wang, Assistant Professor, Department of Accounting, National Taiwan University
Pei-Cheng Liao, Associate Professor, Department of Accounting, National Taiwan University
Chin-Wei Lin, Auditor, International Business Service, PricewaterhouseCoopers
Abstract
In 2007, an amendment to the Administrative Litigation Act and Certified Public Accountants Law required that a non-lawyer receive official permission from the presiding judge in order to act as an agent. The public accountants protested this amendment. According to their belief, accountants have adequate professional knowledge to act as an agent in litigation that involves tax administrative issues. This study uses empirical research, calling on the verdicts in 2005 from the Taipei High Administrative Court, to examine whether accountant-agents or lawyer-agents act more efficiently and/or effectively in litigation dealing with income-tax administration. Empirical evidence shows that public accountants perform more efficiently than lawyers, because litigation time period is significantly shorter for accountant-agents than for lawyer-agents. However, there is no significant difference in effectiveness between lawyer-agents and accountant-agents. Besides, the conclusion on the effectiveness can be spurious when research ignores endogenousity or simply compares the agents' probability of winning the case.
Keywords
certified public accountants law efficiency of income-tax administrative litigation effectiveness of income-tax administrative litigation