Many features of U.S. tax policy towards multinational firms — including the governing principle of capital export neutrality, the byzantine system of expense allocation, and anti-inversion legislation — reflect the intuition that building “strong fences” around the United States...

This paper reviews recent evidence analyzing the link between earnings management and corporate tax avoidance and considers the implications for how policymakers should evaluate the financial reporting environment facing firms. A real–world tax shelter is dissected to illustrate how tax...