@article {1973601, title = {Book-Tax Differences and the Costs of Private Debt}, journal = {Advances in Accounting}, volume = {42}, year = {2018}, month = {2018}, address = {Amsterdam}, abstract = {In this study, we test for associations between measures of book-tax differences (BTDs) and measures of private bank loan costs. Our measures of bank loan costs are: (1) interest rate spreads, and (2) security requirements. Initial results suggest a positive association between variability in total BTDs, but not levels, and private debt costs. After decomposing BTDs into their permanent and temporary components, we find that temporary BTDs (levels and variability) are consistently positively associated with costs of private debt, whereas permanent BTDs are not. Further, we find that the positive relation between BTDs and costs of private debt is attenuated for high-tax-planning firms and is stronger for loan facilities in which leading lenders have high market shares. Consistent with the findings of Ayers et al. (2010), we interpret these results as indicative of BTDs generally impacting the precision of the information conveyed in the financial statements, raising concerns about earnings quality, except where the BTDs likely result from tax planning.}, keywords = {Accounting}, author = {Moore,Jared and Xu,Li} } @article {1971171, title = {The Mitigation of High-Growth-Related Accounting Distortions after Sarbanes-Oxley}, journal = {Research in Accounting Regulation}, volume = {30}, year = {2018}, month = {2018}, address = {Amsterdam}, abstract = {Here we examine accruals and book-tax differences before and after the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) in the context of high-growth vs. lower-growth firms. Our examination is based on the notion that high growth creates unique management and reporting challenges that can contribute to distortions related to accruals and book-tax differences. SOX, with its emphasis on financial reporting, control systems and management responsibility, would be relevant for firms with such challenges. Our results show a stronger reduction (weaker increase) in total accruals and book-tax differences (performance-matched modified Jones discretionary accruals) for high-growth firms from the pre- to the post-SOX period relative to lower-growth firms. We also find evidence that the relation between accounting returns and market returns strengthened for high-growth firms in the period after SOX, but not for lower-growth firms. We interpret these results as greater reductions in accounting distortions and related improvements in reporting quality for high-growth firms relative to other firms coinciding with the post-SOX period.}, keywords = {Accounting}, author = {Moore,Jared and Graham,Roger} } @article {1973596, title = {Tax Avoidance, Financial Experts on the Audit Committee, and Business Strategy}, journal = {Journal of Business Finance and Accounting}, volume = {45}, year = {2018}, month = {2018}, address = {Hoboken, NJ}, abstract = {We examine whether financial expert audit committee members tailor their approach to overseeing the corporate tax planning process according to the firm{\textquoteright}s business strategy. We predict and find that such directors encourage defender-type firms (characterized partially by high risk aversion) to engage in more tax avoidance activities and prospector-type firms (characterized partially by innovation and risk seeking) to scale back on tax avoidance, relative to the opposing strategy type. We also find that both accounting experts and non-accounting financial experts on the audit committee contribute to our results to some extent, although the effects of non-accounting financial experts present more consistently. Overall, our results suggest that financial experts on the audit committee tend to play more of an advising role for defenders and more of a monitoring role for prospectors, relative to one another.}, keywords = {Accounting, Strategy \& Entrepreneurship}, author = {Moore,Jared and Hui Hsu,Pei and Neubaum,Donald} } @article {1973606, title = {Dual Entrenchment and Tax Management: Classified Boards and Family Firms}, journal = {Journal of Business Research}, volume = {79}, year = {2017}, month = {2017}, address = {Amsterdam}, abstract = {This study examines whether and how multiple managerial entrenchment devices within a firm, specifically the structure of the board of directors and family firm status, interact to influence tax management. Using a sample of 4,000 U.S. public firm-year observations covering the period 1999-2013, we find that the classified board structure and family firm status are both negatively related with tax avoidance. However, accounting for the interaction between board structure and family firm status, we also find that the negative associations between both entrenchment measures and tax management apply only where the other entrenchment mechanism is absent. In further analysis, we find that higher levels of monitoring by institutional investors neutralize the interaction between the presence of a classified board and family firm status. Our evidence highlights that governance/monitoring mechanisms can interact in complex ways, including an offsetting effect between potentially redundant dual-level entrenchment mechanisms, to influence tax management behavior.}, keywords = {Accounting}, author = {Moore,Jared and Suh,SangHyun and Werner,Edward} } @article {1973611, title = {The Impact of Tax Rate Changes on Intercorporate Investment}, journal = {Advances in Accounting}, volume = {34}, year = {2016}, month = {2016}, address = {Amsterdam}, abstract = {We examine how tax rates impact investment by corporations in the stock market. We regress changes in intercorporate investment on changes in the various individual and corporate top statutory marginal tax rates (MTRs). We find a significant negative association between changes in individual capital gains MTRs and changes in intercorporate investment, while no such association is evident for changes in either individual ordinary or dividend MTRs. These results support the notion that corporations respond to the after-tax rate of return and/or market efficiency consequences brought about by a change in individual capital gains MTRs. We find a significant positive relation between changes in intercorporate investment and changes in corporate MTRs on ordinary income. These results are consistent with corporations scaling back expansion plans and instead investing free cash flows in equity securities as MTRs increase.}, keywords = {Accounting}, author = {Gary,Robert and Moore,Jared and Sisneros,Craig and Terando,William} } @article {1973616, title = {Empirical Evidence on the Impact of External Monitoring on Book-Tax Differences}, journal = {Advances in Accounting}, volume = {28}, year = {2012}, month = {2012}, abstract = {This study investigates whether institutional ownership levels are associated with levels of and time-series variability in book-tax differences (BTDs). Firm and year fixed-effects regression results suggest that institutional ownership is negatively associated with total, permanent, and temporary BTDs. This effect is driven primarily by permanent BTDs in the pre-SOX era but is consistently present for both permanent and temporary BTDs post-SOX. Further, this negative association is present regardless of firms{\textquoteright} classification as {\textquotedblleft}tax planners{\textquotedblright} and/or {\textquotedblleft}earnings managers.{\textquotedblright} Finally, the results provide some evidence that stronger monitoring by the board and audit committee (i.e., a smaller and more independent board and a larger audit committee) is associated with lower permanent BTDs but is not consistently related with total or temporary BTDs. Overall, these findings are consistent with higher levels of institutional ownership equating to more effective monitoring of management, resulting in lower BTDs (both in terms of levels and time-series variability).}, keywords = {Accounting}, author = {Moore,Jared} } @article {1971211, title = {Empirical Evidence on the Impact of Book-Tax Differences on Divergence of Opinion Among Investors}, journal = {Journal of the American Taxation Association}, volume = {33}, year = {2011}, month = {2011}, address = {Sarasota, FL}, abstract = {It is well known that the objectives of financial accounting and tax accounting sometimes conflict, resulting in book-tax differences (BTDs). In this study we test for associations between measures of BTDs and measures of market participants{\textquoteright} uncertainty regarding the information conveyed in financial reports. The measures of market participant uncertainty are: (1) share turnover, (2) analyst forecast dispersion, and (3) stock return variance. We find positive associations between levels and variability of total BTDs and the three measures. After disaggregating BTDs into their permanent and temporary components, we find that both are positively associated with market uncertainty, although the permanent component of BTDs is generally more strongly and consistently associated with measures of uncertainty than is the temporary component. We interpret these results, in part, as indicative of the possible effect of uncertainty contained in BTDs, especially permanent BTDs, on the precision of the information conveyed in the financial statements}, keywords = {Accounting}, author = {Moore,Jared and Comprix,Joseph and Graham,Roger} } @article {1973621, title = {Empirical Evidence on the Revenue Effects of State Corporate Income Tax Policies}, journal = {National Tax Journal}, volume = {62}, year = {2009}, month = {2009}, address = {Washington, DC}, abstract = {Using fixed-effects models of state corporate income tax (SCIT) revenues that account for the endogeneity of apportionment formula weights and tax rates, we find that states with a double-weighted sales factor experience lower SCIT revenues than do states with an equally-weighted sales factor, while higher statutory tax rates are associated with higher SCIT revenues. We also find that several other tax policies have statistically and economically significant associations with SCIT revenues. Use of a throwback rule and defining business income more broadly are associated with higher SCIT revenues, while combined reporting surprisingly is not significantly associated with SCIT revenues.}, keywords = {Accounting}, author = {Gupta,Sanjay and Moore,Jared and Gramlich,Jeffrey and Hofmann,Mary Ann} } @article {1973626, title = {The Impact of Tax Status on the Relation between Employee Stock Options and Debt}, journal = {Journal of the American Taxation Association}, volume = {30}, year = {2008}, month = {2008}, address = {Sarasota FL}, abstract = {This study extends prior research on the tax motivated substitution of employee stock options (ESOs) for debt by providing evidence on the manner in which the tax status of the firm and ESOs interact to influence debt policy. Using tobit regression and a sample of 13,345 firm-year observations over the period 1993-2004, we find that firms whose expected marginal tax rates are likely to be affected by non-debt tax shields (i.e., tax-sensitive firms) substitute ESOs for debt. In contrast, we find no association between debt and ESOs for firms that are likely able to fully utilize all available tax shields without affecting their expected marginal tax rates due to their high level of profitability for tax purposes (i.e., tax-insatiable firms). These results suggest that tax status impacts the association between debt and ESOs such that the two tax shields are not substitutes for all groups of firms across tax status categories.}, keywords = {Accounting}, author = {Moore,Jared and Aier,Jagadison K.} }