{"title":"“The client can get caught out”: Tax structure maintainability and the intricacies of tax planning aggressiveness","authors":"Maryse Mayer, Yves Gendron","doi":"10.1111/1911-3846.12971","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1911-3846.12971","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In this field study, we examine tax advisors' decision-making process when developing tax planning arrangements. Through interviews with 40 tax advisors, our analysis indicates that tax savings may come at a price in practice by unveiling adverse post-implementation experiences shared by tax partners. Partners find themselves in a tricky position at the time they form their recommendation as they cannot be certain that their client will be able to “live with their tax structure”—that is, maintain it and cope with the inherent risks once implemented. Their main concern is that their client may “get caught out” by a structure too aggressive or complicated for them, having no control over the client's behavior once the plan is implemented. This has significant implications in the tax planning decision-making process as these concerns shape how partners adapt their work to their client's perceived competency and possibly restrain corporate firms' tax aggressiveness. Following Feller and Schanz (2017, <i>Contemporary Accounting Research</i>, <i>34</i>(1), 494–524), we conceive of this as the fourth hurdle of tax planning— whether a tax structure is maintainable, as perceived by tax advisors—and unpack how it operates. Interestingly, restraining the client's tax planning aggressiveness (and the corresponding potential tax savings) is not necessarily perceived by partners as detrimental to the client relationship. Our findings contribute to a better understanding of tax planning in action, highlighting how tax partners seek to influence their client's tax planning aggressiveness.</p>","PeriodicalId":10595,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Accounting Research","volume":"41 4","pages":"2047-2074"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-08-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1911-3846.12971","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142179748","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Trading off managerial and investor uncertainty in firm disclosure: Evidence from R&D investments and management guidance","authors":"Svenja Dube","doi":"10.1111/1911-3846.12969","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1911-3846.12969","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Classic disclosure theory suggests that investor uncertainty increases the probability of discretionary disclosure, while managerial uncertainty decreases this disclosure. Because R&D projects are inherently risky, R&D-intensive firms face high managerial uncertainty as well as high investor uncertainty. This paper empirically examines how R&D intensity impacts the provision, horizon, and content of management earnings guidance. To address endogeneity concerns, state-level R&D tax credits serve as an instrumental variable for R&D intensity. I find that high R&D firms do not provide less earnings guidance than low R&D firms. However, they issue more quarterly guidance but less annual guidance. This substitution strengthens when there is high managerial uncertainty about the success of R&D projects. Consistent with litigation risk leading to asymmetric disclosure incentives, the decrease in annual earnings guidance is concentrated in positive guidance. Overall, the results imply that firms modify the horizon and content of their earnings guidance by substituting long-term positive guidance with short-term guidance when managerial uncertainty discourages the issuance of the former.</p>","PeriodicalId":10595,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Accounting Research","volume":"41 3","pages":"1986-2012"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-08-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142170055","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Evelyn R. Patterson, J. Reed Smith, Samuel L. Tiras
{"title":"The effects and potential benefits of audit committee oversight in a strategic setting","authors":"Evelyn R. Patterson, J. Reed Smith, Samuel L. Tiras","doi":"10.1111/1911-3846.12964","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1911-3846.12964","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Since the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, many notable frauds have been tied to ineffective audit committee (AC) oversight. As a result, AC oversight is of continuing interest, and regulators continue to debate this issue, garnering a growing body of research focused on the role played by the AC. But little theoretical research exists to guide analytical and empirical researchers investigating AC oversight. The purpose of this study is to provide theoretical guidance by examining AC oversight in a strategic setting. We focus on the AC's role in overseeing internal controls (ICs) and the impact of whether the AC relies on management in designing the controls. We characterize how the nature of control risk changes and how IC strength is associated with the amount of managerial fraud, expected probability of fraud detection (which, on average, equates to audit effort), and audit quality (assessed as 1 − audit risk) across two settings defined by the degree of AC oversight. As one example that highlights the need for theoretical guidance, we consider the literature's presumption that IC strength is negatively associated with audit effort. We find that this association may be positive or negative as IC changes, where the association varies with the degree of direct AC oversight and the change in payoff parameters.</p>","PeriodicalId":10595,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Accounting Research","volume":"41 3","pages":"2013-2040"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1911-3846.12964","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142170053","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Maintaining maintenance: The real effects of financial reporting for infrastructure","authors":"Ryan P. McDonough, Claire J. Yan","doi":"10.1111/1911-3846.12970","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1911-3846.12970","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We use the adoption of General Accounting Standards Board Statement No. 34 (GASB 34) to examine whether disclosing information in states' financial reports influences their investment decisions. GASB 34 requires governments to report on general infrastructure assets and permits either the standard depreciation approach or the modified approach. The modified approach requires additional disclosures, a step which we argue promotes greater transparency about a government's infrastructure and can potentially facilitate infrastructure investment decisions. We find a robust positive association between the modified approach and investment in infrastructure maintenance. Additional evidence demonstrates a more pronounced effect when external monitoring is likely higher and government officials are likely better informed as a result of the increased disclosure. We further find that states using the modified approach are less likely to cut or divert funds intended for infrastructure maintenance. Our study suggests that disclosing information in governments' financial reports can have real effects, such as mitigating underinvestment in infrastructure maintenance, which governments often defer to future periods in violation of the interperiod equity principle and to the detriment of society.</p>","PeriodicalId":10595,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Accounting Research","volume":"41 3","pages":"1952-1985"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1911-3846.12970","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141925518","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sell-side analysts as social intermediaries","authors":"Guangyu Li, Crawford Spence, Zhong Chen","doi":"10.1111/1911-3846.12968","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1911-3846.12968","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Recent research on sell-side analysts emphasizes the centrality of social ties and social interactions to what they do. However, we know little about how analysts create or maintain relationships over both the short and long terms. We remedy that in this qualitative study by illustrating the microlevel processes that analysts engage in as part of developing a network of relations around them. Starting from the premise that economic actions are embedded in social relations and drawing on interviews with analysts, fund managers, and investor relations officers in China, we show how analysts forge both weak and strong social ties to create an infrastructure of social networks that is foundational to information intermediation. This perspective broadens our understanding of sell-side analysts as social, rather than solely information, intermediaries and highlights how information asymmetries often have a social basis.</p>","PeriodicalId":10595,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Accounting Research","volume":"41 3","pages":"1925-1951"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-08-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1911-3846.12968","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142170237","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"How do investors value the publication of tax information? Evidence from the European public country-by-country reporting","authors":"Raphael Müller, Christoph Spengel, Stefan Weck","doi":"10.1111/1911-3846.12965","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1911-3846.12965","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We examine the costs associated with public disclosure, as opposed to confidential reporting, of tax country-by-country reporting (CbCR) information. Our study addresses a critical knowledge gap, considering the growing adoption of public tax transparency measures. We aim to illuminate this matter by examining the expected costs for firms of making previously confidential CbCR information publicly available. The fact that the information was previously confidentially reported to the tax authorities allows us to assess the cost of publication in isolation. Employing an event study methodology, we provide early evidence on the capital market reaction to this new requirement on a sample of European firms falling within its scope. We document a significantly negative cumulative average abnormal return of EUR 47 billion to 64 billion for up to 3 days following the announcement. Additional cross-sectional results suggest that concerns about the reputational costs arising from public scrutiny and the proprietary costs from disclosing sensitive business information outweigh the potential benefits of an extended information environment from an investor perspective. Our findings highlight that the public disclosure of tax information imposes significant—and likely unintended—costs from a firm perspective. This aspect should be carefully considered when developing tax transparency measures.</p>","PeriodicalId":10595,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Accounting Research","volume":"41 3","pages":"1893-1924"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-07-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1911-3846.12965","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141745767","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The general anti-avoidance rule","authors":"Mary Cowx, Jon N. Kerr","doi":"10.1111/1911-3846.12963","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1911-3846.12963","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The general anti-avoidance rule, or GAAR, is an enforcement mechanism that gives a country's taxing authority broad power to deny a taxpayer tax benefits associated with any transaction. Although GAARs are becoming increasingly common, the presence of a GAAR is generally overlooked by researchers and thus has been left unstudied. In this paper, we provide an initial investigation by studying the effect of GAARs on firm-level corporate tax avoidance behaviors. Using an indicator for the enactment or strengthening of a GAAR within a country in a stacked difference-in-differences design, we find GAAR enactment is associated with a statistically and economically significant decrease in firm-level tax avoidance. Additional cross-sectional analyses show that the decline in tax avoidance occurs for conventional GAARs and economic substance-type rules, original and strengthened GAARs, and domestic and multinational firms. Results also show that the effect is strongest for firms with higher levels of pre-GAAR-enactment tax avoidance and for firms incorporated in countries where the burden of proof lies with the taxpayer.</p>","PeriodicalId":10595,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Accounting Research","volume":"41 3","pages":"1851-1892"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-07-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141745766","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Bing Li, Zhenbin Liu, Jeffrey Pittman, Shijie Yang
{"title":"Institutional dual holdings and expected crash risk: Evidence from mergers between lenders and equity holders","authors":"Bing Li, Zhenbin Liu, Jeffrey Pittman, Shijie Yang","doi":"10.1111/1911-3846.12966","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1911-3846.12966","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Exploiting mergers between lenders and shareholders of the same firm as an exogenous shock to shareholder–creditor conflicts, we examine the causal effect of these conflicts on firms' ex ante expected stock price crash risk evident in the options implied volatility smirk. The decrease in conflicts of interest between lenders and shareholders induces dual holders to encourage the disclosure of more information to alleviate costly information asymmetry with other investors and better execute their oversight role in constraining managers' bad news suppression. Consistent with expectations, we find that a firm's ex ante expected crash risk declines after a shareholder–creditor merger. We also report strong, robust evidence that the negative impact of mergers on firms' expected crash risk increases when institutional investors or lenders have a greater stake in the treatment firms or when shareholder–creditor conflicts are apt to be exacerbated. Additionally, we document that firms issue management earnings forecasts (especially bad news forecasts) more frequently after these mergers. Finally, we find that expected crash risk decreases more after mergers in firms suffering worse information asymmetry and with weak monitoring mechanisms. Our evidence suggests that option market participants value the dual holder's role in deterring managers' bad news hoarding.</p>","PeriodicalId":10595,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Accounting Research","volume":"41 3","pages":"1819-1850"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-07-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141737300","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Dain C. Donelson, Christian M. Hutzler, Brian R. Monsen, Christopher G. Yust
{"title":"The effect of securities litigation risk on firm value and disclosure","authors":"Dain C. Donelson, Christian M. Hutzler, Brian R. Monsen, Christopher G. Yust","doi":"10.1111/1911-3846.12960","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1911-3846.12960","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Critics assert that securities class actions are economically burdensome and yield minimal recoveries, whereas proponents claim they deter wrongdoing. We examine key events in the recent Goldman Sachs Supreme Court case to test the net effect of securities litigation risk on shareholder value. We find that investors view securities class actions as value-increasing. However, the strength of this effect varies based on external monitoring. Investors view securities class actions as more value-enhancing when institutional ownership is low. We also use this setting to examine the effect of securities litigation risk on mandatory disclosure because the Goldman Sachs case focuses on mandatory disclosure properties. Using a difference-in-differences design, we find firm risk factor disclosures become shorter and less similar to industry peers, and they contain more uncertain and weak terms. Overall, our results show nuanced effects of securities litigation risk on shareholder value and firm disclosure.</p>","PeriodicalId":10595,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Accounting Research","volume":"41 3","pages":"1785-1818"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1911-3846.12960","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141513303","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pierre Chaigneau, Woo-Jin Chang, Stephen A. Hillegeist
{"title":"Performance measure skewness and the structure of CEO compensation: Theory and evidence","authors":"Pierre Chaigneau, Woo-Jin Chang, Stephen A. Hillegeist","doi":"10.1111/1911-3846.12959","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1911-3846.12959","url":null,"abstract":"<p>While research has analyzed how the structure of incentive pay relates to the dispersion of the performance measure distribution, as measured by its variance or volatility, we examine how it relates to the asymmetry of the distribution, as measured by its skewness. In contrast to the variance, skewness affects the relative informativeness of high and low performance about the agent's effort, which determines the relative efficiency of providing rewards and punishments for incentive purposes. Therefore, skewness is an important determinant of compensation convexity, which is determined by the relative holdings of stock and options. Consistent with our analytical and numerical results, we find that the skewness of expected earnings is negatively associated with the convexity of CEO compensation. Our results are economically significant, robust to alternative specifications, and do not appear to be driven by reverse causality. In addition, we find that earnings skewness is negatively associated with total CEO compensation and that this association is driven by lower options-based compensation. These findings are consistent with CEOs preferring positively skewed performance metrics. Overall, we provide theoretical, numerical, and empirical evidence suggesting that skewness is a more important determinant of the convexity and structure of CEO compensation than volatility.</p>","PeriodicalId":10595,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Accounting Research","volume":"41 3","pages":"1754-1784"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-06-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141506442","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}