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Managing Annual Accounting Reports to Avoid State Taxes: An Analysis of Property-Casualty Insurers

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  • Kathy R. Petroni
  • Douglas A. Shackelford

Abstract

We hypothesize that, in their annual accounting reports, insurers allocate premiums and losses from multistate policies to reduce total state taxes. To test this prediction, we examine firm-level data, collected from the publicly-available statutory reports used to compute tax bases and filed with each state government. If insurers manage allocations to avoid taxes, we anticipate an inverse relation between the tax rate and the premium-to-loss ratio, which is the industry's standard measure of the price of a unit of coverage. Firm-specific prices are computed using premium and loss information from the annual regulatory reports filed with each state in which an insurer underwrites. Primary analysis is conducted on 12,573 insurer-state observations from 1993. We find the premium-to-loss ratio is decreasing in state tax rates, consistent with multistate insurers managing their annual accounting reports to shift premiums (losses) to more (less) favorably taxed states.

Suggested Citation

  • Kathy R. Petroni & Douglas A. Shackelford, 1998. "Managing Annual Accounting Reports to Avoid State Taxes: An Analysis of Property-Casualty Insurers," NBER Working Papers 6590, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:6590
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    Cited by:

    1. Margaret Lamb & Andrew Lymer, 1999. "Taxation research in an accounting context: future prospects and interdisciplinary perspectives," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(4), pages 749-776.
    2. Yu-Luen Ma & Nat Pope, 2020. "The impact of Sarbanes–Oxley on property-casualty insurer loss reserve estimates," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 45(2), pages 313-334, April.
    3. Inès Bouaziz Daoud & Mohamed Ali Omri, 2011. "Divergences comptabilité - fiscalité, gestion fiscale et gestion des résultats en Tunisie : les nouveaux défis," Post-Print hal-00646800, HAL.
    4. Nicos Scordis, 2020. "A note on risk and value from an underutilized dataset: Consolidated disclosures," Risk Management and Insurance Review, American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 23(1), pages 105-112, March.
    5. Ke, Bin & Petroni, Kathy R. & Shackelford, Douglas A., 2000. "The impact of state taxes on self-insurance," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 99-122, August.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H25 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Business Taxes and Subsidies
    • H73 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Interjurisdictional Differentials and Their Effects

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