This paper examines the circumstances that led to the incorporation of the LIFO method of inventory valuation into the tax law in 1938 and 1939. An understanding of why the LIFO method was adopted after decades of initial opposition by revenue officials may lend perspective to the current policy...

This paper clarifies some of the conflicting arguments about the value relevance of deferred taxes. We address two questions. First, does accounting aggregation hold, or in other words, are deferred tax expense and liability balances valued the same as operating earnings and asset balances,...

We discuss the role and economic significance of the last-in, first-out (LIFO) inventory accounting method in the current tax system, both as a matter of practice and of policy. After examining the traditional justifications for LIFO we argue that LIFO, as it is administered, is inconsistent...

This paper looks into the investment behavior of multinational firms with respect to their locked-out foreign earnings. The focus is on multinational firms subject to credit and deferral home-country taxation such as that of the United States. “Locked-out earnings” refers to the earnings of...

Building on recent theory, we find strong and robust evidence that external labor market incentives motivate CEOs to adopt more aggressive tax policies in order to improve firm performance and their own labor market value. In addition, we find that the tax aggressiveness-labor market incentives...

We find that managers with military experience pursue less tax avoidance than other managers and pay an estimated $1–$2 million more in corporate taxes per firm-year. These managers also undertake less aggressive tax planning strategies with smaller tax reserves and fewer tax havens. Although...

Multinational firms have been accused by politicians, regulators, and citizen groups of shifting profits to low-tax geographic areas. We present evidence that multinational firms with tax-haven operations tend to aggregate their geographic disclosures to a greater extent. The results are...

Multinational firms have been accused by politicians, regulators, and citizen groups of shifting profits to low-tax geographic areas. We present evidence that multinational firms with tax-haven operations tend to aggregate their geographic disclosures to a greater extent. The results are...

Properties of many important valuation rules can be quantified, examined and compared in a unified framework to assist policy decisions. Valuation rules can be viewed as econometric estimators of unobserved values of aggregates. Which valuation rule has minimum mean squared error (relative to...

One objection to fair value accounting for liabilities is that changes in a company’s credit risk are recognized as gains or losses in a manner that is counterintuitive to the way gains and losses are typically interpreted (Lipe 2002). Specifically, when a company’s credit risk increases...