Do Concentrated Owners Pay Less? French Evidence on Tax Avoidance and Female Directors

This study examines whether concentrated voting control increases corporate tax avoidance in French listed firms and whether board gender diversity and audit committee independence constrain that relationship. Using 3,388 firm-year observations from 242 CAC All Shares firms from 2009 to 2022, the analysis combines hand-collected voting rights concentration with three tax-avoidance measures. Effective tax rate measures are transformed so that higher values consistently indicate higher avoidance, and book tax differences are used to capture reporting gaps between accounting and taxable income. The main estimations use generalized least squares with year and industry fixed effects, firm-clustered robust standard errors, and system generalized method of moments checks for endogeneity. The results support an entrenchment view. Higher ownership concentration is associated with greater tax avoidance across the effective tax rate and book tax difference measures. Board gender diversity weakens this positive association, especially where female representation moves from very low to moderate levels. Audit committee independence also dampens the concentration avoidance link, while the COVID-19 year strengthens it. The study contributes to governance and tax avoidance research by showing how voting control, board composition, and crisis conditions jointly shape tax risk in a civil law setting.