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Analysts’ pre-tax income forecasts and the tax expense anomaly

Author

Listed:
  • Bok Baik

    (Seoul National University)

  • Kyonghee Kim

    (University of Missouri at Columbia)

  • Richard Morton

    (Florida State University)

  • Yongoh Roh

    (Seoul National University)

Abstract

This paper examines whether analysts’ pre-tax income forecasts mitigate the tax expense anomaly documented by Thomas and Zhang (J Account Res 49:791–821, 2011). They find that seasonal changes in quarterly income tax expense are positively related to future returns after controlling for the earnings surprise and conclude that investors underreact to value-relevant information in tax expense. When analysts issue both earnings and pre-tax income forecasts, they implicitly provide a forecast of income tax expense. We posit that this implicit forecast helps investors recognize the persistence of current tax expense surprise for future earnings. Accordingly, we expect that mispricing of tax expense will be less severe for firms with earnings and pre-tax income forecasts. As expected, we find that the presence of pre-tax income forecasts significantly weakens the positive relation between tax expense surprise and future returns, consistent with analysts’ implicit forecasts of tax expense mitigating the tax expense anomaly.

Suggested Citation

  • Bok Baik & Kyonghee Kim & Richard Morton & Yongoh Roh, 2016. "Analysts’ pre-tax income forecasts and the tax expense anomaly," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 559-595, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:reaccs:v:21:y:2016:i:2:d:10.1007_s11142-016-9349-z
    DOI: 10.1007/s11142-016-9349-z
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    Cited by:

    1. Müller, Raphael & Spengel, Christoph & Vay, Heiko, 2020. "On the determinants and effects of corporate tax transparency: Review of an emerging literature," ZEW Discussion Papers 20-063, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    2. Song, Huimin & Tao, Xuedan & Wang, Huabing (Barbara) & Zhang, Jinkang & Zhang, Linlin, 2024. "Does mandatory tax disclosure mitigate tax expense anomaly? Evidence from FIN 48," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Pre-tax income forecasts; Disaggregated forecasts; Tax expense anomaly; Analysts’ forecasts;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • M41 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting - - - Accounting

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