The Aggregation and Valuation of Deferred Taxes

Review of Accounting Studies - This paper clarifies some of the conflicting arguments about the value relevance of deferred taxes. We address two questions. First, does accounting aggregation hold,...     

Deferred Taxes and Bond Ratings: A Canadian Case

This paper explores the usefulness of the current Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants standard on accounting for income taxes in bond rating decisions by credit analysts. Bond rating prediction models using accounting variables generated with alternate treatment of income taxes, have been developed. The analysis indicates that additional information presented by the above standard has not contributed significantly to the bond raters' decision making process.     

Discounting and the Treatment of Taxes in Impairment Reviews

Abstract:  IAS 36 requires an asset's recoverable amount to be measured by discounting its pre-tax rather than post-tax cash flows. Although defined so as to produce the same value, the pre-tax approach is claimed to be simpler and more reliable. The paper demonstrates that an appropriate pre-tax discount rate varies between assets with different tax depreciation schedules and that it changes over time. Hence, pre-tax discounting is likely to become complex. The paper advocates an amendment of the standard such that value in use is measured by company-specific after-tax cash flows, and such that deferred taxes are included in the impairment review.     

Creating a Bigger Bath Using the Deferred Tax Valuation Allowance

Abstract:  The provisions of SFAS No. 109 allow US companies to make an earnings big bath even bigger through the establishment of a deferred tax valuation allowance. At the time a firm recognizes a non-cash charge, it also recognizes a deferred tax asset to represent the future tax benefits of the charge. Recognition of the deferred tax asset partially mitigates the negative earnings impact of the special charge. However, if the firm does not expect to have sufficient future taxable income to utilize the future tax benefits of the charge, SFAS No. 109 requires the firm to establish a deferred tax valuation allowance, effectively eliminating the recognized deferred tax asset. Thus, the establishment of the valuation allowance amplifies the negative earnings impact of the non-cash charge. We use a valuation allowance prediction model to identify firms that create a larger-than-expected valuation allowance; these firms may be creating a large valuation allowance as a reserve to be used to manage earnings in a subsequent period. We find that the vast majority of these larger-than-expected valuation allowances apparently reflect informed management pessimism about the future in that these firms actually do have poorer operating performance in subsequent periods. We do not find any evidence that subsequent reversals of valuation allowances are used to turn a loss into a profit. However, we do find a very small number of firms that appear to have used a valuation allowance reversal to meet or beat the mean analyst forecast.     

Stock Market Valuation of Deferred Tax Assets: Evidence from Internet Firms

Abstract:   We use the provisions of SFAS No. 109 , Accounting for Income Taxes , to examine the extent to which stock prices of Internet firms were associated with expectations of future profitability before versus after the 'market correction' in early 2000. We find that the valuation of deferred tax assets of firms with business models reliant on the level of web site traffic was significantly greater after the market correction. In our view, this evidence is consistent with pre‐correction mispricing.     

Discussion of ‘Making Deferred Taxes Relevant’

Abstract

In this discussion of Brouwer and Naarding's article ‘Making Deferred Taxes Relevant’, which is published in this issue of Accounting in Europe, I question several aspects of their proposal to change the tax accounting standard. I argue that a quest for more value relevance of individual balance sheet items is not a good guideline for accounting standard setting. The distinction between book-first and tax-first temporary differences may be helpful for some analytical purposes, but it is not sufficiently robust to serve as a basis for an accounting standard. However, I agree with the authors that the efforts to improve IAS 12 should not be abandoned.     

The Recognition and Timing of Deferred Tax Liabilities

Abstract:   This paper examines the characteristics of firms that account for deferred tax liabilities related to government investment grants under an extended adoption timing period. Not only the recognition but also the timing decision is associated with changes in future performance and changes in the debt structure. Recognisers outperform non‐recognisers in the future, while early recognition is related to post recognition performance but only for those firms that currently perform well. Changes in the balance sheet structure are also related to both decisions. Firms with recent increases in the debt level tend to postpone recognition, while currently well‐performing firms that increase their future debt level are less likely to recognise deferred taxes.     

Payroll Taxes and the Decision to be Self-Employed

This paper investigates and quantifies the role of payroll taxes in the decision to be self-employed. It examines the effects of introducing into the labour market a payroll tax which taxes employers, but which exempts the self-employed. It exploits two changes in the tax legislation to confirm that it is changes in legislation and not other sector specific trends that are driving the results. Our findings suggest that payroll taxes do indeed influence the decision to be self-employed, with the probability of self-employment increasing as taxes on employees increase and vice versa. Furthermore, there appear to be declines in the return to self-employment caused by the tax, possibly due to inefficient allocation of labour towards self-employment.     

The Valuation of Deferred Taxation: Evidence from the UK Partial Provision Approach

The UK provides a virtually unique environment in which to examine the information content of the partial provision approach to deferred tax accounting. In addition this issue is of particular interest to UK accounting standard setters in the light of trends towards international accounting standard harmonisation. Taking the total amount of deferred taxation to be equal to the partial balance sheet provision plus the potential portion appearing in the notes, this study tests the relationship between these various deferred tax components and market value. It also examines the economic rationale for the potential portion. The study is based on 1,512 company/years from the period 1989–1991. It finds that, while the full amount of deferred taxation is not valued by the market as a liability, there is evidence of the partial balance sheet provision being so valued. There is also evidence that the potential portion is positively related to market value, consistent with its proxying for information about future growth. This result is supported by the positive relation between the potential portion and measures of future capital spending, indicative of an underlying economic rationale for this deferred taxation component. From a regulatory perspective, the study concludes that the main benefit of the partial provision approach is that the balance sheet amount constitutes a reasonably reliable measure of the portion likely to crystallise as a liability, information that would be lost were only the full amount to be disclosed.     

House Prices and Local Taxes in the UK

In this paper, estimates of the effects of local domestic property taxes (rates) on local house prices are presented, and the effect of local taxes on owner-occupied dwelling prices is calculated for a number of English cities for the period up to 1990. The methods used enable estimation to be made of the effect of the introduction, during 1990, of the Community Charge or poll tax in England, when the local tax base was moved from housing consumption onto individual residency. It is estimated that the reform could have increased house prices by around 15 per cent and contributed substantially to house price inflation.     

Local Taxes and Capital Structure Choice

This paper investigates the question of taxation and capital structure choice in Germany. Germany represents an excellent case study for investigating the question of whether and to what extent taxes influence the debt-equity decision of firms, because the relative tax burdens on debt and equity vary greatly across communities. German communities levy local taxes on profits and long-term debt payments in addition to personal and corporate taxes on the federal level. A stylized model is presented incorporating these taxes. The model shows that local taxes create substantial incentives for firms to use debt financing. Furthermore, the paper empirically investigates the effect of local business taxes on the share of debt used to finance incremental investments by German firms. I find that local taxes significantly influence the capital structure choice of firms, controlling for a large number of other factors. In an extensive sensitivity analysis the tax effect are found to be robust across several different specifications.     

Effects of Progressive Taxes under Decentralized Bargaining and Heterogeneous Labor

We consider changes in income tax progressivity in an economy where workers' productivities differ and workers and firms bargain individually over wages. With given employment a pure increase in tax progressivity reduces wages by reducing workers' relative bargaining power. When average taxes also increase, after-tax wages are unambiguously reduced, while the effects on gross wages and firm profitability are ambiguous. We next endogenize employment and firm entry under a uniform worker productivity distribution and the government's only policy instrument is a linear income tax. While a first-best solution then is ruled out, a second-best solution can be implemented using a family of linear tax functions, where a more progressive tax implies a higher tax revenue to the government. We show that the government can increase its tax revenue, and reduce after-tax income differences, without any additional disturbance to allocation.     

环境税制比较研究及其对中国的借鉴

环境税制的完善有助于环境友好型、资源节约型社会的形成。作为一项重要的经济法律制度,环境税制的国外理论和经验值得我们学习和借鉴。因此,追溯环境税制的理论基础和演变历程,分析国际环境税制的设计方法,总结国际环境税制的设计经验,可以给我国环境税制的设计提供原则、目标、实施路径的参考。     

Export Competition and the Remission of Domestic Environmental Taxes

We consider the use of border adjustments to compensate exporters for domestic environmental taxes imposed on an intermediate good. A model of successive oligopoly is used to consider the appropriate border adjustments. In this set-up, the relative importance of the forward incidence of the environmental tax and the backward incidence of the remission play a key role. The results highlight that the simple rule employed by GATT/WTO to set the export remittance equal to the level of the environmental tax is likely to be inappropriate.JEL Code: H87, Q38     

借鉴国际经验 完善地方税制

世界上许多国家，为适应其政治、经济不断发展变化的需要。都曾对地方财税体制进行过一系列改革，在有些国家形成了一套相对完整而又行之有效的地方税制，本文试图通过地一些国家地方税制的比较分析，找出地方税制建设的一些共同规律，为我国地方税制的完善提供借鉴。     

实现环境利益公平分享的环境税机理

环境利益公平分享是改革发展成果分享的一项重要内容,但是现行的制度框架无法保障环境利益的公平分享。克服环境利益分享制度不公和矫正环境利益分享制度缺乏的诸多政策工具中,从环境利益分享不公的社会根源来看,环境税无疑是保障社会主体公平分享环境利益的理想的政策工具,因为环境税具有保护环境利益且公平分配环境利益的制度效应。     

Political Sustainability and the Design of Environmental Taxes

This paper studies the issue of political support for environmental taxes. The environmental tax is determined by majority voting, given a refund rule that specifies the allocation of tax proceeds. The refund rule is chosen by a welfare-maximizing constitutional planner. We show that: (i) The equilibrium tax rate is increasing in the proportion of tax reductions based on wage incomes. (ii) If labor and capital income taxes are reduced in the same proportion, to keep the government's budget balanced, majority voting yields a rate of environmental taxation that is lower than the optimal (Pigouvian) level. (iii) To mitigate this negative bias, the government reduces wage taxes by a higher proportion than capital income taxes. (iv) The final outcome will either be the Pigouvian tax or else all reductions will be given in wage taxes. This depends on individuals' preferences for the polluting good as well as wage and capital income distributions.     

对我国开征环境税的探讨

本文针对开征环境税的主要难点问题进行了分析,认为我国环境税应定位于直接污染税(或排污税);环境税与排污费相比,在法律、征管、收入使用、税费负担设计等层面都具有优势,其中,法律层面和征管层面的优势是排污费改税的主要推动力;自行申报、环保核定、税务征收的环境税征收模式相对具有可行性。