Book-tax Conformity Research Articles

Home Country Tax System Characteristics and Corporate Tax Avoidance: International Evidence

ABSTRACTWe examine whether three tax system characteristics—required book-tax conformity, worldwide versus territorial approach, and perceived strength of enforcement—impact corporate tax avoidance across countries after controlling for firm-specific factors previously shown to be associated with tax avoidance (i.e., performance, size, operating costs, leverage, growth, the presence of multinational operations, and industry) and for other cross-country factors (i.e., statutory corporate tax rates, earnings volatility, and institutional factors). We find that, on average, firms avoid taxes less when required book-tax conformity is higher, a worldwide approach is used, and tax enforcement is perceived to be stronger. However, the relations between tax avoidance and all three tax systems characteristics are contextual and depend on the extent to which management compensation comes from variable pay, including bonuses, stock awards, and stock options.Data Availability: Data are available from sources identified in the text.

Are Multinational Corporate Tax Rules as Important as Tax Rates?

Previous research has documented the influence of statutory tax rates on international firms' effective tax rates, or ETRs. We add to this body of research by examining common factors of the income tax base, which affects ETRs. Specifically, this study examines the determinants of effective tax rates for publicly traded companies based in European Union (EU) countries. The time period examined is after 2004, when all EU firms were required to use standardized accounting principles under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). We find that, across EU countries, such factors are relatively consistent with factors found in studies of U.S. companies' effective tax rates, which include inventory, leverage, depreciation tax shield, and R&D intensity. We also find that the presence of country book-tax conformity rules increases effective rates. Importantly, our finding that such tax base (or rule) effects are at least as important as rate effects adds to the international debate about uneven tax structures around the globe.

The Association between Book-Tax Conformity and Earnings Management

There is an on-going debate in the literature about the costs and benefits of conforming book and taxable income. Proponents argue that increased book-tax conformity will reduce aggressive financial reporting because managing earnings up increases taxes and will curtail abusive tax shelters because managing taxes down decreases earnings reported to shareholders. We use a panel of 139,536 firm-year observations across 34 countries over the period 1996-2007 to test whether high levels of book-tax conformity are associated with less earnings management and find that higher book-tax conformity is associated with significantly more, not less earnings management. We conclude that one of the primary claimed benefits of increasing book-tax conformity, more truthful financial reporting with less earnings management, is unlikely to be as large as previously thought.

The Effect of Book-Tax Conformity on Earnings Persistence: New Evidence

This paper contributes to the ongoing book-tax conformity debate by examining whether conformity (i.e., reducing the gap between book and tax accounting) improves earnings reliability by restraining managers from reporting financial profits and taxable income aggressively. Using financial statement information from 1994 to 2004 for 18,027 firms from 33 countries, I investigate whether the level of mandatory book-tax is associated with the degree of earnings management and tax planning in a cross-country setting. I construct a new book-tax conformity measure and examine the ex post impact of conformity on earnings persistence. The findings reveal that, after controlling for institutional factors and firm characteristics, firms in countries with a high level of book-tax conformity exhibit a low level of earnings management and tax avoidance. Consistent with the proposed benefits claimed by the proponents, book-tax conformity enhances earnings persistence by curbing opportunistic book and tax reporting that impairs the creditability of reported earnings.

The effects of book-tax conformity and tax accounting incentives on financial accounting: evidence from public and private limited companies in Germany

Using as a natural experiment, the German corporate tax rate decrease in 2001, this paper studies the effect of tax accounting incentives on financial statements in a setting where book-tax conformity is strong. We find that companies that generally balance their overall accounting strategy, i.e., they focus on tax accounting and financial accounting concurrently, are less willing to engage in tax-induced earnings management than are companies that do not focus on accounting strategy balancing. Moreover, we observe that tax accounting incentives in our natural experiment influence the earnings management behaviour of private companies but not of public companies. Our findings highlight the impact of tax accounting incentives on financial accounting when book-tax conformity is strong; therefore, these findings offer a new starting point for a sound discussion on the future of book-tax conformity.

Book-Tax Conformity: Empirical Evidence from Germany

We use a unique matched tax return - financial statement data set to examine the magnitude and sources of book-tax differences in Germany. For the first time, the data set enables us to evaluate the extent to which financial and tax accounting differ in Germany in the most accurate manner. Despite the close link between financial and tax accounting in Germany, we find that corporate taxable income and income reported to shareholders diverge considerably. Regression results suggest that this reporting gap is largely attributable to legal differences between financial and tax accounting and we cannot provide evidence that tax aggressive reporting adds to it. However, further analyses show that firms actively engaged in corporate restructuring exhibit larger book-tax differences than other firms. We interpret this result as evidence of firms willing to give up the administrative advantages of a one-book accounting system in order to achieve desired tax or financial accounting result, if book-tax conformity is not required. Thus, the results not only provide insights into the relatively unexplored area of behavioral response to changes in the degree of book-tax conformity, but also add a new perspective to the discussion surrounding the implementation of the German Accounting Law Modernization Act (BilMoG) in 2010.

Conformity or Decoupling: A Comparative Analysis of Different Tax Regimes

This paper analyzes a tax compliance game to examine how the degree of conformity in tax systems affects the value relevance of accounting information. The parallel settings in the book-tax conformity case and the decoupling case, and their solutions are compared to obtain comparative results. In the conformity case, the firm must report its earnings that are equal to its taxable income. On the other hand, the firm can report its accounting earnings and its taxable income differently. However, the tax authority conducts a tax audit based on the book-tax difference. The analysis shows that the value relevance in the conformity model is strictly higher than that in the decoupling model. Although this result is somewhat counterintuitive, it is consistent with some empirical studies.

Home Country Tax System Characteristics and Corporate Tax Avoidance: International Evidence

We examine whether three tax system characteristics – required book-tax conformity, worldwide versus territorial approach, and perceived strength of enforcement – impact corporate tax avoidance across countries after controlling for firm-specific factors previously shown to be associated with tax avoidance (i.e., performance, size, operating costs, leverage, growth, the presence of multinational operations, and industry) and for other cross-country factors (i.e., statutory corporate tax rates, earnings volatility, and institutional factors). We find that, on average, firms avoid taxes less when required book-tax conformity is higher, a worldwide approach is used, and tax enforcement is perceived to be stronger. However, the relations between tax avoidance and all three tax systems characteristics are contextual and depend on the extent to which management compensation comes from variable pay, including bonuses, stock awards, and stock options.

Will a departure from tax-based accounting encourage tax noncompliance? Archival evidence from a transition economy

We investigate whether a departure from a tax-based accounting system toward the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards encourages tax noncompliance. We also examine whether such a departure, which weakens book-tax conformity, affects the informativeness of book-tax differences for tax noncompliance. Our evidence suggests that as book-tax conformity decreases, tax noncompliance increases. Although book-tax differences remain informative of tax noncompliance, the informativeness attenuates as book-tax conformity weakens. Additionally, firms with high incentives to inflate book income are more tax compliant than their counterparts after the departure from a tax-based accounting system.

Book-tax conformity, earnings persistence and the association between earnings and future cash flows

Calls for eliminating differences between accounting earnings and taxable income in the US have been debated extensively. Proponents of increased book-tax conformity argue that tax compliance will increase and earnings quality will improve. Opponents argue that earnings quality will decline. We examine whether the level of required book-tax conformity affects earnings persistence and the association between earnings and future cash flows. We develop a comprehensive book-tax conformity measure and find that earnings have lower persistence and a lower association with future cash flows when conformity is higher. Our evidence suggests that increased book-tax conformity may reduce earnings quality.

Book-Tax Conformity: Implications for Multinational Firms

This paper examines the implications for multinational firms of recent proposals to conform tax and financial reporting (i.e., book-tax conformity). Proponents of book-tax conformity argue that the current dual system in the U.S. allows firms to simultaneously manage their taxable income downward while managing their book income upward. By requiring book-tax conformity, they contend that firms will be forced to trade off reporting high earnings numbers to shareholders and reporting low earnings to the taxing authority, resulting in improved financial reporting and less tax avoidance. Reduced compliance costs and easier auditing have also been cited as potential benefits of book-tax conformity. However, before one can evaluate the costs and benefits of book-tax conformity it is necessary to understand international implications of conformity, particularly regarding the foreign operations of U.S. multinationals. We describe several possible approaches to implementing book-tax conformity for firms that have both domestic and foreign operations. We discuss issues likely to arise with each approach and conjecture at the behavioral responses to each. Using firm-level financial data from Compustat, we simulate the effects of book-tax conformity on publicly traded U.S. firms. Specifically, we simulate the effects of book-tax conformity on the level and variability of tax payments/collections.

An unintended consequence of book-tax conformity: A loss of earnings informativeness

Increasing the conformity between accounting earnings and taxable income has been proposed to improve financial reporting and curtail aggressive tax planning. We find, however, that increasing conformity results in earnings that are less informative. Our inquiry exploits a unique sample of firms forced to change from the cash method to the accrual method for tax purposes, thereby increasing their book-tax conformity. We find that these firms experienced a decrease in earnings informativeness compared to control firms unaffected by the change. To our knowledge, this is the first evidence of tax law changes affecting the informativeness of accounting earnings.

The Influence of Tax Costs on Accounting Conservatism

This paper investigates whether the conservatism in financial reporting is driven by taxation. Although conservatism has been examined from the perspectives of contracting, shareholder litigation, and accounting regulation, few studies have examined the relation between taxation and accounting conservatism. Using unconditional conservatism measures, we find that the level of conservatism is positively related with a firm's tax burden. However, the relation is not detected when a conditional conservatism measure is used, suggesting that use of an appropriate conservatism measure is important for testing tax motivated conservatism. Further study shows that the tax motivated conservatism is affected by the degree of book-tax conformity and the level of nontax costs. Firms with a closer link between book and taxable income are likely to have a stronger relation between tax costs and conservatism. Also we find that tax motivated conservatism is more prevalent for the firms with low nontax cost. Overall, this paper shows that taxation is a determinant of financial reporting conservatism in Korea.

Book-Tax Conformity: Implications for Multinational Firms

This paper examines the implications for multinational firms of recent proposals to conform tax and financial reporting (i.e., book-tax conformity). Proponents of book-tax conformity argue that the current dual system in the U.S. allows firms to simultaneously manage their taxable income down while managing their book income upward. By requiring book-tax conformity, they contend that firms will be forced to trade-off reporting high earnings numbers to shareholders and reporting low earnings to the taxing authority, resulting in improved financial reporting and less tax avoidance. Reduced compliance costs and easier auditing have also been cited as potential benefits of book-tax conformity. However, before one can evaluate the costs and benefits of book-tax conformity it is necessary to understand international implications of conformity, particularly regarding the foreign operations of U.S. multinationals. We describe several possible approaches to implementing book-tax conformity for firms that have both domestic and foreign operations. We discuss issues likely to arise with each approach and conjecture at the behavioral responses to each. Using firm-level financial data from Compustat, we simulate the effects of book-tax conformity on publicly traded U.S. firms. Specifically, we simulate the effects of book-tax conformity on the level and variability book earnings and tax payments/collections.

Reassessing the Role of Book-Tax Conformity

Book-tax conformity refers to the legal link between financial and tax accounts, and is an institutional feature of many continental European countries and countries like Japan that follow continental European traditions. Many studies argue that book-tax conformity impedes earnings informativeness. However, book-tax-conformity is required for single accounts but not for group accounts, which are used to inform capital markets. Previous research has not properly used this distinction. The absence of a formal link between group income and taxable income makes a causal empirical relationship between legal book-tax conformity and resulting cross-country differences in group earnings properties much less compelling. We argue that studies documenting this relationship suffer either from an omitted variable problem (i.e., failure to sufficiently control for differences in reporting incentives) or sample selection bias (inclusion/noninclusion of single accounts in the test sample). We reassess cross-country differences in asymmetric earnings timeliness and find that legal book-tax conformity does not affect cross-country differences in group earnings properties when the institutional environment is adequately controlled for. Instead, group accounting follows typical reporting incentives even in countries where there is high book-tax conformity for single accounts. Furthermore, we show that even tax-dominated single accounts are responsive to nontax reporting incentives.

Book-Tax Conformity of Earnings and the Pricing of Accruals

We examine managerial incentives underlying book accruals and tax accruals affecting stock prices. Due to the differential incentives underlying tax and financial reporting systems differences between book and tax earnings are likely to exist despite the requirements of tax conformity. It is widely argued in the literature that tax conformity will likely reduce opportunistic behavior. However, recent findings of Hanlon et al. (2006) indicate that tax conformity leads to tax-induced conservatism which in turn reduces the information content of earnings. Hanlon (2005) demonstrates the association between tax differences and the persistence of earnings. We decompose total accruals into discretionary tax accruals and non-discretionary tax accruals, discretionary book accruals and non-discretionary book accruals to examine how the market prices book versus tax accruals. As predicted, the evidence shows that during the period of 1986-2001 firms had increased the use of income decreasing discretionary tax accruals in an effort to reduce their tax liability. In contrast with prior studies, a test of equality of multivariate regression coefficients reveals that the persistence of the nondiscretionary book accruals is not significantly different than the cash flow component of earnings. This implies that by taking into account the tax incentives embedded in tax accruals provides a more transparent measure of book accruals that better reflects changes in earnings and firm value. The market's inability to correctly assess the persistence of accruals is more severe for tax accruals than for book accruals. In addition, a trading strategy of portfolios with high levels of discretionary tax accruals yields positive size-adjusted abnormal returns. These results suggest that the market has difficulty interpreting tax accruals either because of lack of sufficient disclosure regarding these accruals or lack of understanding of their tax consequences.

Book-Tax Conformity and the Information Content of Earnings

We examine whether the information content of earnings is inversely related to the degree of conformity between financial accounting income and taxable income. Our inquiry exploits a natural experiment first examined by Guenther et al. (1997) in which a set of U.S. firms were forced to increase their book-tax conformity as a result of a change in the tax law. We find evidence consistent with the increase in book-tax conformity reducing the usefulness of financial accounting earnings. The information content of earnings as measured by the long-window earnings response coefficients and the R- squared from a regression of returns on earnings decreases for this set of firms after the tax law required greater book-tax conformity. We find that the declines are significantly larger than the changes in the same measures for an industry-matched sample of firms not required to increase conformity. These results add to the academic literature on the interaction of taxes and financial reporting as well as to the policy debate about whether the U.S. should conform the tax law to GAAP, a debate that has recently intensified. Hanlon acknowledges financial support from an Ernst & Young Faculty Fellowship. Maydew acknowledges financial assistance from the University of North Carolina Kenan- Flagler Business School. Shevlin acknowledges financial assistance from the Accounting Development Fund at the University of Washington. We thank Nader Hafzalla for research assistance and Scott Dyreng and Dave Guenther for comments on an earlier draft. We appreciate Dave Guenther and Sarah Nutter sharing the identification of the firms required to switch to accrual basis accounting for tax purposes.

Book-Tax Conformity for Corporate Income: An Introduction to the Issues

This paper discusses the issues surrounding the proposals to conform financial accounting income and taxable income. The two incomes diverged in the late 1990s, with financial accounting income becoming increasingly greater than taxable income through the year 2000. While the cause of this divergence is not known for certain, many suspect that it is the result of earnings management for financial accounting and/or the tax sheltering of corporate income. Our paper outlines the potential costs and benefits of one of the proposed "fixes" to the divergence: the conforming of the two incomes into one measure. We review relevant research that sheds light on the issues surrounding conformity both in the United States as well as evidence from other countries that have more closely aligned book and taxable incomes. The extant empirical literature reveals that it is unlikely that conforming the incomes will reduce the amount of tax sheltering by corporations and that having only one measure of income will result in a loss of information to the capital markets.

Specialty and training differences in the reported use of endocarditis prophylaxis at an academic medical center

This paper synthesizes the major empirical findings of the burgeoning tax avoidance research in China from the accounting, finance, and economics literature over the last 13 years. It surveys the evidence in four main areas: (1) the mechanisms through which Chinese firms avoid income taxes; (2) the effects of government ownership and agency problem on tax avoidance; (3) tax avoidance and political connections; and (4) the roles of book-tax conformity, tax enforcement, and corporate governance. It also discusses the appropriateness of tax avoidance measures in the Chinese setting. Finally, it proposes important directions for future research.

The effect of tax accounting rules on capital structure and discretionary accruals

This study investigates the effect of changing tax accounting provisions for long-term manufacturing contracts between 1984–1985 and 1989–1990 on debt and accrual policies using a simultaneous equations approach. The results indicate that firms adjust debt ratios and discretionary accruals with relatively high book-tax conformity to achieve tax planning goals and use discretionary accruals with relatively low book-tax conformity to accomplish financial reporting objectives. Manufacturing firms directly affected by the change in tax rules for long-term contracts increase their leverage by 6.2 percentage points more than other manufacturers.