IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/reacre/v24y2012i2p96-104.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The relation between aggressive financial reporting and aggressive tax reporting: Evidence from ex-Arthur Andersen clients

Author

Listed:
  • Heltzer, Wendy
  • Mindak, Mary P.
  • Shelton, Sandra W.

Abstract

We investigate the economic trade-offs managers face due to conflicting incentives to report high financial statement book income and, at the same time, report low taxable income. Our setting involves Houston clients of Arthur Andersen (AA), who have been shown to exhibit a culture of aggressive financial reporting. Using our sample of AA Houston clients, we test two competing theories: (1) firms which have a culture of aggressive financial reporting are also aggressive in their tax reporting, versus (2) firms which are willing to pay real dollars (taxes) to report higher financial statement earnings. We do not find support for either theory. Instead, our findings suggest a middle-ground: firms may exhibit a culture of aggressive financial reporting without impacting their relative tax reporting. Our findings not only shed light on the intersection of financial and tax reporting, but they also add to the extant literature involving the culture of AA. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper to investigate the tax ramifications of AA’s culture of aggressive financial reporting.

Suggested Citation

  • Heltzer, Wendy & Mindak, Mary P. & Shelton, Sandra W., 2012. "The relation between aggressive financial reporting and aggressive tax reporting: Evidence from ex-Arthur Andersen clients," Research in Accounting Regulation, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 96-104.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:reacre:v:24:y:2012:i:2:p:96-104
    DOI: 10.1016/j.racreg.2012.05.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1052045712000173
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.racreg.2012.05.001?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gopal V. Krishnan, 2005. "Did Houston Clients of Arthur Andersen Recognize Publicly Available Bad News in a Timely Fashion?," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 22(1), pages 165-193, March.
    2. Paul K. Chaney & Kirk L. Philipich, 2002. "Shredded Reputation: The Cost of Audit Failure," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(4), pages 1221-1245, September.
    3. DeAngelo, Linda Elizabeth, 1981. "Auditor size and audit quality," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(3), pages 183-199, December.
    4. Edward L. Maydew & Douglas A. Shackelford, 2005. "The Changing Role of Auditors in Corporate Tax Planning," NBER Working Papers 11504, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Abdul Ghafoor & Rozaimah Zainudin & Nurul Shahnaz Mahdzan, 2019. "Factors Eliciting Corporate Fraud in Emerging Markets: Case of Firms Subject to Enforcement Actions in Malaysia," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 160(2), pages 587-608, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chou, Julia & Zaiats, Nataliya & Zhang, Bohui, 2014. "Does auditor choice matter to foreign investors? Evidence from foreign mutual funds worldwide," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 1-20.
    2. Gerry Gallery & Emerson Cooper & John Sweeting, 2008. "Corporate Disclosure Quality: Lessons from Australian Companies on the Impact of Adopting International Financial Reporting Standards," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 18(3), pages 257-273, September.
    3. Mahdi Salehi & Ali Mansoury, 2009. "Firm Size, Audit Regulation and Fraud Detection: Empirical Evidence from Iran," Management, University of Primorska, Faculty of Management Koper, vol. 4(1), pages 5-19.
    4. Ray Ball, 2009. "Market and Political/Regulatory Perspectives on the Recent Accounting Scandals," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(2), pages 277-323, May.
    5. Knechel, W. Robert & Thomas, Edward & Driskill, Matthew, 2020. "Understanding financial auditing from a service perspective," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    6. Loréa Baïada-Hirèche & Ghislaine Garmilis, 2016. "Accounting Professionals’ Ethical Judgment and the Institutional Disciplinary Context: A French–US Comparison," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 139(4), pages 639-659, December.
    7. Incardona, John & Kannan, Yezen & Premuroso, Ronald & Higgs, Julia L. & Huang, Ivy, 2014. "Taxing audit markets and reputation: An examination of the U.S. tax shelter controversy," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 18-31.
    8. Ricardo D. Brito & Eduardo P. Peres, 2006. "Does Credible Auditing Add Value?," Brazilian Business Review, Fucape Business School, vol. 3(2), pages 200-222, July.
    9. Inder K. Khurana & K. K. Raman, 2006. "Do Investors Care about the Auditor's Economic Dependence on the Client?," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 23(4), pages 977-1016, December.
    10. Xianjie He & Jeffrey Pittman & Oliver Rui, 2016. "Reputational Implications for Partners After a Major Audit Failure: Evidence from China," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 138(4), pages 703-722, November.
    11. Kam-Wah Lai & Ferdinand A. Gul, 2021. "Do failed auditors receive lower audit fees from continuing engagements?," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 56(3), pages 1159-1190, April.
    12. Piet Sercu & Heidi Bauwhede & Marleen Willekens, 2006. "Post-Enron Implicit Audit Reporting Standards: Sifting through the Evidence," De Economist, Springer, vol. 154(3), pages 389-403, September.
    13. Anna Bergman Brown & Nicole M. Heron & Hagit Levy & Emanuel Zur, 2023. "StoneRidge Investment Partners v. Scientific Atlanta: A Test of Auditor Litigation Risk," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 187(3), pages 517-538, October.
    14. Joseph Weber & Michael Willenborg & Jieying Zhang, 2008. "Does Auditor Reputation Matter? The Case of KPMG Germany and ComROAD AG," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(4), pages 941-972, September.
    15. Kuo, Nan-Ting & Li, Shu & Du, Ya-Guang & Lee, Cheng-Few, 2022. "Does individual auditor quality contribute to firm value? Evidence from the market valuation on corporate cash holdings," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 135-153.
    16. Huang, Roger D. & Li, Hang, 2009. "Does the market dole out collective punishment? An empirical analysis of industry, geography, and Arthur Andersen's reputation," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(7), pages 1255-1265, July.
    17. Autore, Don M. & Billingsley, Randall S. & Schneller, Meir I., 2009. "Information uncertainty and auditor reputation," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 183-192, February.
    18. Li Dang & Kevin F. Brown & B.D. McCullough, 2011. "Apparent audit failures and value relevance of earnings and book value," Review of Accounting and Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 10(2), pages 134-154, May.
    19. Serge Evraert & Stéphane Trebucq, 2003. "Crise De Confiance Et Information Comptable : Une Etude Empirique Des Reactions Du Marche Français A L'Annonce Des Affaires Enron Et Worldcom," Post-Print halshs-00582775, HAL.
    20. Andrew McLennan & In-Uck Park, 2016. "The market for liars: Reputation and auditor honesty," International Journal of Economic Theory, The International Society for Economic Theory, vol. 12(1), pages 49-66, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:reacre:v:24:y:2012:i:2:p:96-104. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/research-in-accounting-regulation .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.