Impact of the IFRS on the disclosure of income tax figures by Romanian listed companies

The transition to IFRS in Romania, in the separate financial statements (in 2012) led to the application of new rules in the accounting for income tax. We found significant differences between accounting and taxable income, which can suggest a trend towards more de facto disconnection between accounting and taxation. Deferred tax liabilities are more present than deferred tax assets in the listed companies’ balance sheet, even if the weight of these liabilities is less important that the weight of the deferred tax assets. The effective tax rate (calculated in three ways: with total tax, current tax and cash paid tax) is, in most cases, higher that the Romanian statutory rate. As expected and consistent with several previous studies, fixed assets are the main source of temporary differences and, thus, of deferred tax assets and liabilities. The main contribution of the paper consists in filling a gap in the literature on the impact of the IFRS in Romania, in the special topics concerning income taxes (current and deferred), in the measure of the difference between net accounting income and taxable income, as well as in calculating and interpreting the effective tax rate for the Romanian listed companies.