In this paper we examine the association between CEO turnover and tax avoidance. Further,we also examine whether the effects of CEO turnover on tax avoidance vary with the types ofturnover (voluntary/forced turnover). On the on hand, given the top statutory tax rate of 22%,minimizing corporate taxes can greatly enhance after-tax cash flows and firm value. Also itincreases after-tax earnings, consequently improving the chances to meet earnings targets. Therefore, CEOs have the incentive to inflate after-tax earnings by minimizing corporate taxesin order to obtain higher bonus or to extend their tenure. On the other hand, tax avoidance canbe costly for CEO because he/she may face potential reputational damage or accusation forillegal tax evasion in the event a strategy is overturned. The benefits from tax avoidance areimmediate. However, the costs are often determined by a tax authority’s investigation after afew years. Indeed, there is often a lag period between benefiting from tax avoidance and bearingcosts. A conflict of interest might arise when the CEO who benefits from tax avoidance is differentfrom the CEO who takes risk. For example, departing CEO in his/her last year can shift therisk of aggressive tax avoidance onto incoming CEO, while he/she still enjoys the benefits oftax avoidance such as compensation increase. In this case, departing CEO is likely to be moreaggressive to implement a tax avoidance strategy because expected costs of tax avoidance reduce. Meanwhile, incoming CEO tries to remove accumulated tax risk due to a former CEO’s aggressivetax avoidance in his/her first year rather than implement new tax avoidance strategies. Therefore, we expect departing CEO is more aggressive for tax avoidance than incoming CEO. However, the effects of CEO turnover on tax avoidance may differ for voluntary turnover andforced turnover. CEO turnover can be classified as voluntary or forced. Voluntary turnover is the case where departing CEO leaves the company voluntarily, while forced turnover is the casewhere CEO departure is forced. In case of voluntary turnover, a departing CEO typically remainsa member of the board of directors. Since a departing CEO is still an insider after retirement,he/she might take the responsibility for previous tax avoidance if the strategy is overturned. Therefore, we expect departing CEO of voluntary turnover is less aggressive for tax avoidancethan departing CEO of forced turnover prior to the CEO change year. We analyze 851 CEO turnovers from 2001 to 2011 for firms listed on Korea Stock Exchangeand KOSDAQ. We measure corporate tax avoidance using the book-tax differences not attributableto discretionary accruals (Desai and Dharmapala 2006). The empirical results are as follows. First, we find CEO turnover firms shows significant decrease in tax avoidance following turnover. Second, CEO turnover firms have lower levels of tax avoidance after turnover, compared tonon-CEO turnover firms with similar size in the same industry. Third, such results are observedonly when CEO is forced to leave. We do not find significant relation between CEO turnover andtax avoidance in case of voluntary departure. These results indicate that CEOs have differentialincentives for tax avoidance around their turnovers depending on the types of turnover. This paper has several contributions to the literature. First, to our knowledge, ours is thefirst study to find the effects of CEO turnover on tax avoidance. Second, this study shows thatCEO turnover causes temporal variation in levels of a single firm’s tax avoidance, while priorstudies focus on the cross-sectional determinants of tax avoidance. Third, the evidence of thisstudy suggests the need for more rigid monitoring for tax avoidance around CEO turnover.