This chapter proposes that tax education, proxied by Master of Science in Taxation (MST) degree, has substantial influence on chief financial officers' (CFOs) knowledge, skill sets, values, and cognitive preferences and further influences their decisions in tax reporting. By empirically examining the relation between CFOs with MST degree and their companies' tax compliance based on US data between 2004 and 2016, we find that CFOs with MST degree are associated with improved tax compliance, suggesting that US MST education, beyond general accounting education, cultivates graduates with higher levels of professionalism and ethics in the field of taxation. Moreover, we find that CFOs' tenure, age, and compensation influence the relation between tax education and tax compliance, suggesting company's compensation and employee policies influence executives' tax decisions. Finally, we find that pressures from financial reporting and CEOs with accounting educational background could alleviate the role of CFOs with accounting educational background in tax reporting, while institutional owners could strengthen the role of CFOs. This chapter provides evidence regarding the social implication of MST program and has important managerial implication to tax compliance, executive recruitment, and corporate governance.
Local governments use taxes on future increases in property values to pay for current economic development through tax incremental financing (TIF). TIF is a powerful tax tool used to spur improvements to a designated area. Proponents of TIF argue that it allows local governments to make investments without affecting previously established government and school district programs. Detractors argue that because the TIF designation denies existing overlapping districts (e.g., schools) the benefits of increases in property values, TIF can have a negative impact on a community. Empirical evidence on the economic and fiscal effects of TIF is mixed. This paper describes the potential costs and benefits associated with the use of TIF and then summarizes prior research on outcomes associated with this widely used property tax program.
We examine experimentally the extent to which three potential tax authority interventions encourage the reporting of tax fraud to tax authorities and how two types of guilt feelings are involved in this decision. Using a sample of 728 adult taxpayers in the United States, we find that a cash award, a prosocial award and a moral suasion message positively influence whistleblowing intentions and that the moral suasion effect is mediated by intrapsychic guilt (when an individual violates their moral values) and interpersonal guilt (when one's actions cause harm to another). The combination of a cash award and moral suasion message results in the greatest likelihood of tax whistleblowing. Our research contributes to the tax whistleblowing literature by providing evidence of the efficacy of potential interventions and also extends literature on the role of moral emotions by showing the relevance of intrapsychic and interpersonal guilt to the tax fraud reporting decision.
This study examines whether US effective tax rates on foreign income of US multinationals (MNCs) vary according to the favorability of US macroeconomic conditions relative to those of non-US countries. We use the pre-Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 regime as our setting and present evidence that US effective tax rates on foreign earnings are higher (lower) in periods when macroeconomic conditions in the US are favorable (unfavorable) relative to those elsewhere in the world. These results imply that firms seek to maximize after-tax returns when making asset allocation decisions, even when faced with US repatriation tax costs. We provide further evidence indicating that our primary results vary predictably according to certain firm characteristics, namely the ability to acquire funds for investment through less expensive means than repatriation of foreign profits, high intangible asset intensity, and tax aggressiveness. Finally, we show that economic uncertainty in the US counters the positive effects of favorable US macroeconomic conditions on US effective tax rates on foreign earnings. Our findings have implications for the policy debate around the US taxation of foreign earnings and provide a (partial) explanation for the observed lower-than-expected levels of repatriation activity following the implementation of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.
This report and reflective note provides details and analyzes the tax scholarship published in Advances in Taxation over the ten-year period from 2014 to 2023 including authorship, themes, research methods adopted, and impact of the underlying scholarship. I conclude with some thoughts on future directions for the journal.
We examine why Cash ETRs of US domestic firms have decreased over time. Using samples from two periods – an early period (1994–1998) and a late period (2011–2015) – we regress Cash ETRs in each period on a set of explanatory variables, and allow coefficients to differ across time periods. We find that, when coefficients are allowed to differ, there is no longer a decline in the unexplained portion of Cash ETR across the two periods, and that the previously observed decline is associated with a change in the relation between firm size and Cash ETR between the two periods. Further analysis suggests that the coefficient on firm size has been declining over the past 20 years, and that controlling for this time trend alone is sufficient to explain the declining trend in Cash ETRs for domestic firms.
In this study, we examine the impact of audit protection services on individual taxpayer decision making. Audit protection services provide additional support for taxpayers in the event of an audit including preparation and representation. While these services could provide taxpayers with additional confidence, such services could also foster greater reliance on tax software, possibly resulting in riskier tax decisions. Drawing on risk homeostasis theory, we investigate two factors that could affect taxpayer reliance: the amount of taxes owed and the extent of audit protection services. Our results indicate that taxpayers are more likely to rely on tax software prompts when there are full audit protection services and a greater amount of taxes owed. Further, we find that the provision of full audit protection services reduces the likelihood that taxpayers change their tax reporting behavior. Collectively, we provide evidence on taxpayer interactions with tax software.
This study explores the relationship between firm value and conforming tax avoidance (tax avoidance that does not create a book-tax difference). Tax avoidance provides firms with more cash and creates value. However, conforming tax avoidance has costs, such as lower book income, and these costs potentially lower firm value. As such, it is unclear whether conforming tax avoidance is positively or negatively correlated with firm value. We use a measure of conforming tax avoidance that was recently introduced in the literature, and bifurcate tax avoidance into conforming and nonconforming portions using a large sample. We present evidence that investors place a negative value on conforming tax avoidance for the average firm. We also examine the top quartile based on the measure of conforming tax avoidance and find a positive correlation between firm value and conforming tax avoidance for this subsample.
This study examined social media, tax morale, and tax compliance behaviour. Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) was utilized to investigate the quantitative data gathered from 592 salaried and self-employed taxpayers in East Malaysia, comprising two regions – Sabah and Sarawak. The results showed that social media had no significant effect on tax compliance. There was, however, a significant and negative relationship between social media and tax morale. A significant and positive effect of tax morale on tax compliance was also discovered. The bootstrapping technique indicated that tax morale mediates the association between social media and tax compliance. This research is among the earliest in a developing country to investigate the effect of social media in enhancing tax compliance, thus, contributing to the tax literature with a broader focus.
I examine patterns of making or deferring strategic repatriations that firms can use to either meet analysts' forecasts or defer to maintain future reported earnings flexibility. First, I examine the extent to which firms repatriate earnings from high foreign tax subsidiaries to decrease US tax expense, resulting in increased net income and lower cash taxes. Using federal tax return information, I find evidence that firms strategically repatriate these earnings to meet or beat current analysts' forecasts. Next, I find evidence that firms that are able to obtain current year tax reductions defer these repatriations in an attempt to build cookie-jar reserves. Lastly, I find that firms do not disclose high foreign tax repatriations (HTRs), even when required by SEC rules. This study contributes to the earnings management, tax avoidance, and disclosure literature by examining a discretionary tax planning strategy.
The existing literature documents mixed evidence toward the association between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate tax planning (e.g., Davis, Guenther, Krull, & Williams, 2016; Hoi, Wu, & Zhang, 2013). In this study, I aim to identify a causal relationship between CSR and tax planning, leveraging the staggered adoptions of constituency statutes in US states, which is a plausibly exogenous shock to firms' emphasis on their social responsibility. In general, the statutes permit firm directors to consider the interests of all constituents when making business decisions, including those who benefit from firms paying their fair share of income taxes. Thus, the adoption of the statutes raises the importance of firms' social responsibility in paying income taxes. Employing a staggered difference-in-differences (DiD) method, I find that firms incorporated in states that have adopted constituency statutes exhibit significantly higher effective tax rates (ETRs) based on current tax expense. This causal relationship suggests that managers, with the legitimacy to consider the social impact of tax avoidance, become less aggressive in tax planning. I further find that the effect of adoption is stronger for financially unconstrained firms and firms in retail businesses, where the demand (cost) for tax avoidance is lower (higher). Finally, I show that my main results are driven by firms located in states with a high sense of social responsibility and firms with high levels of tax avoidance prior to the adoption. Overall, the findings in this chapter contribute to the literature by delineating a negative causal relationship between CSR and tax avoidance and identifying a positive social impact brought by the passage of constituency legislation.
The cost of compliance is an essential variable to consider when administering a tax system. One recent study estimates that the yearly federal tax compliance burden in the US exceeds $431 billion dollars, and this cost does not include the potential greatest cost of all – changes in taxpayer behavior that reduces economic efficiency (Laffer, Winegarden, & Childs, 2011). One example of such behavior is the renunciation of US citizenship due to the impact of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) reporting requirements. Using this context, our study examines how FATCA compliance costs can affect taxpayer behavior in a manner that reduces economic efficiency. We collected responses from 197 experienced US taxpayers living in the US. Our study finds that when tax compliance costs are high, taxpayers may be more likely to renounce their citizenship to avoid FATCA reporting requirements. We further learn that tax compliance costs may increase the likelihood of citizenship renunciation even in the presence of a minimal US tax burden. Supplemental mediation analysis demonstrates that one's perceived fairness of compliance does not mediate the effect of high compliance costs on a taxpayer's renunciation decision; however, one's perceived fairness of compliance and fear of sanctions, collectively, partially explain the effect of tax burden on the renunciation decision. In addition, we find that ethics, the perceived probability of detection, and average income level affect the decision to renounce citizenship. Our findings suggest broader impacts of tax policy and provide a foundation for future research to further explore domestic and foreign tax compliance behaviors.
We examine the stock market reaction to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017 during its enactment process, focusing on its international provisions. Consistent with extant evidence, we find lower returns for high-foreign-activity firms, indicating a negative market reaction to the international provisions overall. Considering specific international provisions, we find that the market reaction was more positive (negative) for firms likely most affected by the shift to a quasi-territorial system for taxing foreign earnings (the transition tax on existing unrepatriated earnings, the tax on global intangible low-taxed income, and/or the base erosion and antiabuse tax) than for other firms. Our findings imply that investors are able to disentangle the economic implications of complex and interactive tax law changes.
This research investigates the effect of imposing a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) on the likelihood of purchasing SSBs. We design and test an experimental framework that examines this and the effects of providing an explanation about the presence of an SSB tax and information about the negative health effects of consuming SSBs. Consistent with Elbel, Taksler, Mijanovich, Abrams, and Dixon (2013) and Taylor, Kaplan, Villas-Boas, and Jung (2019), we find that imposing a tax, in addition to increasing the conspicuousness of the tax by explaining the presence of a tax (and in some cases, the negative health effects) reduces the likelihood of purchasing an SSB anywhere from 8.39% to 18.15%. We contribute to the public health and tax policy literature by testing consumer choice in a controlled experimental setting and considering the effect of individual differences on the choice to purchase SSBs. Imposing a tax on SSBs may be an effective tool for decreasing SSB consumption that is made more effective when the tax is conspicuous.
Married couples receive tax benefits such as favorable tax rates, higher exclusions, higher phase-outs, and combined deductions. However, joint and several tax liability is a major issue facing these taxpayers. The term innocent spouse relief, within the Internal Revenue Code, is a direct result of one spouse failing to satisfy the joint liability for the married couple. Since both individuals are jointly and severally liable for the combined liability, the innocent spouse may be responsible for the liability in whole or in part. Our study examines this highly litigated arena of innocent spouse relief. To assist in this area of taxation, the Internal Revenue Service has provided taxpayers and tax practitioners with guidance. Revenue Procedure 2003-61 (2003-2 CB 296) outlines factors useful in determining whether innocent spouse relief should be granted. Additionally, this study creates a predictive model containing only three significant factors (economic hardship, knowledge/reason, significant benefit) capable of predicting with approximately 89% accuracy. These same three variables are significant after running multiple regression with p-values of 0.002 (economic hardship), 0.000 (knowledge/reason to know), and 0.001 (significant benefit). These factors provide valuable insight to practitioners when advising clients on challenging or accepting the Internal Revenue Service's decision. Additionally, abuse is marginally significant in the regression model. Also, judge gender and political affiliation are analyzed. However, the gender of the judge and political affiliation fail to be statistically significant using the chi-square test and regression model.
Enhanced revenue mobilization is essential in developing countries such as South Africa. However, it is inevitably a complex process, both from economic and political perspectives. Increasing the rate of value-added tax (VAT) has been identified as one option to increase tax revenue, although the likely effect of VAT rate changes on tax compliance behaviour is undetermined. This study considers the impact of such a change on the tax compliance behaviour of small business entities. In order to address the impact of VAT rate changes on tax compliance behaviour, a between-subjects pre-test/post-test online field experiment was conducted and designed to identify the implications of rate changes of various directions and magnitude.Statistical analysis of the data obtained from the experiment indicated that small business entities are inclined to reduce the VAT liability when there is an increase in the VAT rate, and to do so by overstating purchases rather than under-declaring sales. This leads to an increase in non-compliance. The greater the magnitude of the VAT rate increase, the greater the level of non-compliance. In contrast, no significant relationships were identified between a decrease in the VAT rate and tax compliance.
When presented with technical topics, undergraduate accounting students can be overwhelmed by information transmitted in a pure lecture format. Further, a lecture format does not allow for much student interaction or enable learning of higher-level skills that could be useful if the underlying content is changed by future regulations. Position paper instructional tools could be a beneficial alternative. A position paper can bring out students' soft skills of communication and critical thinking by making them take a stand, which is key for tax professionals and accountants generally. Since class meeting time is limited and face-to-face interactions are not always possible, a written position paper provides an alternative that can benefit students' understanding of technical information.
This research addresses the question of whether market competition influences a firm's implicit tax burden. Implicit taxes are defined as the pretax rate of return disadvantage earned on an investment that is taxed preferentially. The Scholes and Wolfson (1992) model predicts that implicit taxes will fully offset any benefit from preferential tax treatment leading to no benefit from lower explicit taxes; however, their theory assumes perfect market competition. This chapter relaxes the assumption of perfect market competition and finds that firms in industries with lower competition bear lower implicit taxes and firms in industries with higher competition bear higher implicit taxes. These findings are consistent with monopoly and oligopoly behavior predictions where firms in less competitive industries have greater price setting power and can retain more of their tax savings while market forces in competitive industries force companies to pass along any savings to customers (Mason, 1939). Furthermore, these findings answer the call in the literature for more research on determinants of cross-sectional variation in implicit taxes (Shackelford & Shevlin, 2001).
Most governments around the world rely heavily on tax revenue to fund not only their recurrent expenditure but also their long-term development goals. There is some evidence suggesting that tax evasion in Vietnam has, over the years, been on the rise in terms of number, scale and degree of sophistication. It may thus be beneficial to understand the extent to which various relevant psychological factors interact to influence the tax compliance of Vietnamese taxpayers. This chapter attempts to quantify the effects of taxpayer's emotion, trust and perception on their tax compliance in Vietnam. It adopts a positivist research framework, a quantitative research method and primary data collection. First, a simple, theoretical model in which emotion and trust affect tax compliance both directly and indirectly through perception as a mediating variable, is constructed. The Baron−Kenny method is then applied to the data collected from an e-survey to test various hypotheses derived from the devised theoretical model. The results show that taxpayer's perception positively and significantly influences tax compliance whereas emotion and trust exert significant and positive effects on tax compliance both directly and indirectly (via perception). The findings suggest that voluntary tax compliance in Vietnam can be improved through better tax administration services, more fiscal policy accountability and pro-active tax socialization.
The extent to which firms repatriate indefinitely reinvested foreign earnings (IRFE) has been a major issue in the US tax system. Congress enacted provisions in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) specifically to remove tax barriers to repatriation. However, little is known regarding the repatriation of IRFE outside of the temporary tax incentive provided by the 2004 American Jobs Creation Act (AJCA). In this chapter, I provide evidence on such repatriations by identifying a sample of 67 firms from 2009 to 2015 that reverse the indefinite reinvestment designation of foreign earnings and announce a repatriation of foreign cash. In contrast to repatriations following the 2004 AJCA, I do not find evidence that a single economic factor, such as share repurchases, motivates the repatriation. Although, in general, I do not find evidence of a significant market response to the announcements, I find evidence of a negative market reaction to announcements by low foreign effective tax rate (ETR) firms without tax offsets, suggesting that the tax may not be fully priced. Overall, I provide insight into the reasons and implications of the announced repatriation of IRFE.
