Five Things Economists and Lawyers Can Learn from Accountants: An Illustration Using the Domestic Production Activities Deduction

This paper is part of the perspectives of three researchers—an economist, an accountant and a lawyer—on tax policy. The domestic production activities deduction in AJCA 2004 provides a specific platform to introduce five concepts from financial accounting that affect tax policy: book income matters; tax rate changes immediately affect earnings; current tax expense does not generally equal taxes paid; accounting mixes different methods and permits management judgment; and consolidation rules differ for book and tax, complicating jurisdictional inferences.