CFO Working Experience and Tax Avoidance

We ask whether CFO's managerial skills affect corporate tax avoidance using a sample of Chinese-listed companies. To that end, we develop a CFO managerial skills index based on four dimensions of the CFO's work experience: (1) the number of current positions a CFO holds, (2) the number of functional departments a CFO has worked in during his career, (3) the number of firms he has worked for, and (4) whether the CFO has political connections. We find that CFOs with high managerial skills are more likely to engage in aggressive tax avoidance. This effect is weakened when CFOs are in their first year of employment, approaching retirement, and are too busy. Moreover, we find that CFOs with general management skills are more likely to adjust corporate tax avoidance to levels similar to their peers