We examine whether the regulatory changes required by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) and Financial Accounting Standards Board Interpretation No. (FIN) 48 reduced the propensity for earnings management through the reserve for income taxes. Given prior evidence that firms use this reserve to...

This paper provides evidence on the types of accounts that reveal earnings management activities. We build on Burgstahler and Dichev's (1997) evidence of earnings management to avoid an earnings decline and Phillips et al.'s (2003) findings that deferred tax expense (DTE) can be used to detect...

We investigate consequences of tax-related material weaknesses in firms’ internal controls over financial reporting. We hypothesize that the presence of internal control material weaknesses (i.e., ICMWs) over the tax function makes earnings management through the income tax accrual (Dhaliwal...

This paper provides evidence on the types of accounts that reveal earnings management activities. We build on Burgstahler and Dichev's (1997) evidence of earnings management to avoid an earnings decline and Phillips et al.'s (2003) findings that deferred tax expense can be used to detect such...

We analyze a set of firms that restated earnings upward because of accounting irregularities and thus presumably had managed earnings downward. Our results are consistent with the restatement sample firms having managed earnings downward in their original financial statements to create cookie...