This research is an investigation into the underlying nature of deferred tax balances. The investigation entails obtaining evidence about whether markets treat changes in these balances that arise from depreciation differences as changes in debt or equity. This is accomplished by relating changes in firm systematic risk to discounted measures of those changes. If deferred tax balances are in the nature of debt (equity), then increases in these balances should be associated with increases (decreases) in systematic risk. Further, market association is hypothesized to be conditional on the way these changes arose: whether from accounting method selection or from tax law changes.