Corporate In‐house Tax Departments*

In‐house human capital tax investment is a significant input to a firm's tax decisions. Yet, due to the lack of data on corporate in‐house tax departments, there is little empirical evidence on how tax departments are associated with tax planning and compliance outcomes. We expect the size of tax departments to be positively associated with the effectiveness of tax planning and compliance. Using hand‐collected data on the number of corporate tax employees in S&P 1500 firms over the 2009–2014 period, we find that firms with larger tax departments are associated with lower and less volatile cash effective tax rates. Furthermore, using tax employees' specialization, we identify tax departments' relative focus on planning or compliance and document a trade‐off between tax avoidance and tax risk. Specifically, tax departments with more of a tax planning focus have incrementally greater tax avoidance but higher tax risk, whereas tax departments with more of a tax compliance focus have incrementally lower tax risk but higher tax rates. Overall, this paper contributes to the literature by looking inside the “black box” of corporate tax departments and shedding light on the importance of human capital tax investment for tax outcomes.     

R&D Investments and Tax Incentives: The Role of Intra-Firm Cross-Border Collaboration*

U.S. multinational corporations increasingly use intra-firm, cross-border research collaboration to disperse R&D across different countries. This paper investigates the implications of such collaboration on the abilities of firms to garner benefits from R&D tax incentives. We find that the association between R&D intensity and tax incentives is three to five times larger when firms have extensive cross-border collaboration connected to a country. We also find that the effect is stronger when local intellectual property protection is weaker and when local innovation resources are higher. Our results suggest that cross-border collaboration helps firms achieve more tax-efficient R&D investments both by reducing the nontax frictions posed by weak intellectual property protection and by increasing the nontax benefits of foreign R&D.     

The Differential Role of R&D and SG&A for Earnings Management and Stock Price Manipulation*

This paper documents a differential role of R&D versus selling, general, and administrative expenses (SG&A) for real earnings management. The distinction of these two components is important because prior studies mostly examine their combined use, but firms could manipulate them differently given the differing valuation implications. Reduced SG&A is viewed positively by investors as evidence of cost reduction, while reduced R&D is viewed negatively by investors as such expenditures are critical signals of expected growth. I examine their use in the context of seasoned equity offerings (SEOs) as well as firms receiving accounting and auditing enforcement releases (AAERs). Although both groups face strong incentives to manage earnings upward by reducing expenses, I predict and find that firms will reduce SG&A but increase R&D. During the manipulation period, SEO and AAER firms exhibit lower discretionary SG&A and higher discretionary R&D, relative to control firms, and investors positively value low discretionary SG&A and high discretionary R&D. Overall, this study confirms the importance of distinguishing between R&D and SG&A in real earnings management contexts and suggests a complementary (substitutive) relation between cutting SG&A (R&D) and accruals management.     

跨国公司在华R&D中心效应与我国技术创新策略

在跨国公司研发国际化过程中,我国的区位优势使其成为跨国公司海外R&D中心的重要基地,这为我国推进技术创新提供了一个良好的契机。跨国公司在华设立的R&D中心对我国技术创新带来了正负两方面的双重效应,我国应通过"学习、引进、合作、自立"提升我国技术创新能力。