우리나라 기업은 왜 결산월을 변경하는가?

Abstract

기업은 다양한 사유로 결산월을 변경할 수 있으며 우리나라에서도 결산월을 변경하는 기업이 종종 나타나고 있다. 결산월 변경기업의 재무정보를 올바르게 이해하기 위해서는 결산월 변경사유를 제대로 이해하는 것이 중요하다. 그럼에도 불구하고 기업의 결산월변경사유를 체계적으로 고찰한 연구는 국·내외를 통해 거의 부재하다. 특히, 우리나라에서는 신문 등 언론에서 기업의 결산월 변경을 부정적이고 비판적인 시각에서만 다루어 왔으며 결산월 변경에 관한 체계적인 학술연구는 이루어지지 않았다. 이에 본 연구는 선행연구및 언론의 주장에 기초하여 결산월 변경동기를 기업의 경영활동에서 발생하는 합리적인 변경동기와 기회주의적 변경동기로 구분하고 각 동기의 타당성을 분석한다. 또한, 분석결과에기초하여 결산월 변경에 관한 정책적 시사점을 제시한다. 본 연구의 표본은 1999년부터 2011년까지 결산월을 변경한 110개 기업이다. 분석 결과, 표본기업의 84%가 지배기업의 결산월 또는 투자기업의 결산월과 일치시키기 위해 결산월을 변경하는 것으로 나타난다. 이는 결산월 변경이 지배기업의 연결재무제표 작성이나 투자기업의 지분법 적용을 용이하게 하기 위한 합리적인 변경임을 의미한다. 반면, 결산월 변경 후 기업을 분석하는 애널리스트 수나 투자자의 관심을 대변하는 주식거래량은 증가하지않는 것으로 나타나는데, 이는 애널리스트나 투자자로부터 보다 높은 관심을 받기 위해 산업을 대표하는 결산월로 변경한다는 사유와는 일치하지 않는 결과이다. 기회주의적 변경동기와 관련해서는, 관리종목 기업이 결산월을 변경하는 경향이 있으며 변경당기에 높은 당기순이익을 보고하는 경향이 있다. 이러한 결과는 관리종목 기업이 관리종목으로부터 조기해제를 위해 결산월 변경을 이용한다는 주장과 일관성이 있다. 반면, 결산월 변경 후에도감사시간이나 감사보수는 유의하게 감소하지 않는데, 이는 엄격한 외부감사를 피하기 위해결산월이 집중되는 12월로 결산월을 변경한다는 언론의 주장이 타당하지 않음을 의미한다. 본 연구의 결과에 따르면, 기업은 경영활동에서 발생하는 합리적인 사유뿐만 아니라 기회주의적인 사유에 의해 결산월을 변경하고 있다. 또한 결산월 변경기업은 변경당기에 영업외손익 항목을 이용하여 당기순이익을 높게 보고하는 경향이 있는데, 이로 인해 변경당기의 재무제표 정보의 질이 저하될 수 있음을 의미한다. 그리고 결산월 변경에 관한 우리나라의 공시규정이 제대로 마련되어 있지 않아 결산월 변경 기업들은 변경 사유에 대한 구체적인 공시를 하지 않는 것으로 나타난다. 따라서, 감독당국은 결산월 변경에 관한 공시규정을 정비하고 해당 공시에 대한 감독을 강화하여 결산월 변경에 대한 충실하고 성실한 공시를 유도할 필요가 있다. 본 연구는 우리나라 기업들이 결산월을 변경하는 유인에 관해 체계적으로 고찰한 최초의 연구라는 점에 의의가 있다.

The choice of the reporting period is an important decision for firms since the reporting period can affect the quality of financial reporting of the firm. In Korea, more than 90% of listed firms have fiscal year-ends of December 31. Thus, auditors may not be able to conduct as rigorous audit for clients with December-fiscal-year-ends as for clients with non-December-fiscal-year-ends, since they have to complete all their audit engagements within a limited time period. Also, firms' business seasonality can affect the choice of the reporting period if firms want to coincide their fiscal years with the business cycle. These suggest that the choice of the reporting period is likely to be a strategic decision rather than a random decision. Prior research suggests firm size, regulations on firms' fiscal year, industry characteristics, business seasonality, and fiscal year of industry peers as determinants of firms' reporting periods. Firms may face a need to change reporting periods, once they chose fiscal year at the time of establishments. Prior research examines firms' incentives to change reporting periods using the data from other countries. The literature documents business seasonality, mergers and acquisitions, uniformity in fiscal year within the same industry, earnings management using missing months, and alignment with a parent's reporting period as reasons for reporting period changes. These observations suggest that changing reporting periods is a strategic decision driven by business reasons. In Korea, firms often change reporting periods and the press tends to cover these events in a negative light. Based on anecdotes, the press makes allegations that firms change fiscal year-ends from non-December to December in order to avoid rigorous audit. Also, the press argues that firms designated as Administrative issues change reporting periods in order to be lifted from Administrative issues. However, as prior research suggests, firms may change reporting periods for business reasons. For example, a subsidiary could change the reporting period to align with the parent's fiscal year. Similarly, an affiliate could change the reporting period to align with the investor's reporting period. Also, firms may change fiscal years to coincide with the industry norm. If firms change fiscal years for business reasons, the allegations made by the press are unwarranted. Thus, this study examines why firms change reporting periods in Korea. Specifically, this study classifies firms' incentives to change reporting periods into rational business decisions and opportunistic incentives. This study examines two types of fiscal year changes driven by rational business reasons: alignment with the parent or investor and alignment with industry peers in order to attract more attention from analysts or investors. We also examine two types of fiscal year changes activated by selfish motives: reporting period change with the intention of being lifted from Administrative issues and reporting period change to December in order to avoid rigorous audit. The sample of the study is 110 firms that changed fiscal years during 1999-2011. The results reveal that 84% of the sample firms change fiscal years to align their reporting periods with those of the parent or investor company. This type of a fiscal year change is firms' rational behavior to facilitate more efficient financial reporting. On the other hand, neither trading volume nor the number of analysts following firms increases after reporting period changes. These results are not consistent with firms aligning their fiscal years with industry peers in order to receive more attention from analysts and investors. We also find that firms designated as Administrative issues tend to change reporting periods and report higher net income in the year of the reporting period change than the year before the reporting period change. Moreover, the results reveal that sales and operating income are not significantly different between the two periods. These results suggest that firms designated as Administrative issues manage net income upward in the year of the reporting period change, which is consistent with firms changing fiscal years to be lifted from Administrative issues. Also, we find that audit hours and audit fees do not decline after fiscal year change, indicating that firms do not change fiscal years to avoid rigorous audit. Our study provide several practical and policy implications. First, our results suggest that firms change reporting periods both for rational business reasons and opportunistic purposes. Nevertheless, all firms changing fiscal years claim that they change reporting periods for business reasons, which indicates that some firms do not disclose real reasons for the reporting period change. Fiscal year changers tend to use non-ordinary items to boost up net income in the year of the reporting period change, which in turn may degrade the quality of financial information. Also, unlike counterparts in other countries, fiscal year changers in Korea do not disclose specific reasons for fiscal year change. Hence, it is necessary for regulators to establish disclosure rules for fiscal year changes and enforce the regulation in order to induce full disclosures of reasons for reporting period changes.