Knowledge Sharing in Auditor-Provided Tax Services: Experiences of Audit and Tax Personnel

Research generally finds positive audit and tax outcomes associated with auditor-provided tax services (APTS), attributing knowledge sharing (KS) between tax and audit as the underlying cause, but not observing it. This study contributes to the APTS literature by investigating experienced audit and tax professionals’ perspectives about when and how KS occurs. Results imply that KS occurs in two phases, and is enhanced or inhibited by multiple factors related to knowledge relevance, motivation, opportunities, and culture. First, audit and tax personnel often share client information and their domain expertise while interacting during the audit, which enables identifying potentially valuable APTS. Second, further KS can occur during/following APTS performance, and APTS results may be shared back to benefit the audit. Our evidence shows that key factors may vary across phases, underscoring the importance of considering the full APTS process. Based on our findings, we suggest a number of future research opportunities.