Book-tax differences and earnings growth

dc.contributor.authorJackson, Mark, 1963-
dc.date.accessioned2010-02-27T00:35:15Z
dc.date.available2010-02-27T00:35:15Z
dc.date.issued2009-06
dc.descriptionx, 65 p. : ill. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number.en_US
dc.description.abstractI examine the relation between book-tax differences (BTDs) and earnings growth. Because financial accounting rules afford managers more flexibility and discretion in reporting than tax accounting rules, prior studies suggest that large differences between book and taxable income indicate lower quality (or less persistent) earnings. Lev and Nissim and Hanlon provide evidence that BTDs contain information about future firm performance, but the nature of the causality in this relation is not clear. While BTDs could proxy for earnings quality, they may also reveal underlying economic events or management's private information about future performance or simply predict future reversals in effective tax rates. I divide total BTDs into their measurable components: temporary (deferred taxes) and non-temporary (permanent differences and tax accruals), and test their relation with the components of net income changes: pretax earnings changes and tax expense changes. I hypothesize that the non-temporary component of BTDs is negatively related to future changes in tax expense, whereas the temporary component of BTDs is negatively related to changes in future pretax earnings. I also examine the maintained hypothesis that the lower earnings growth for large BTD firms is due to earnings management. I use various proxies from prior literature to identify firms potentially managing earnings and test whether the presence or absence of suspected earnings management activity alters the relation between BTDs and earnings changes. My results provide compelling evidence that permanent BTDs are related only to future changes in tax expense, and temporary BTDs are related to changes in pretax earnings. These results are robust to multiple sensitivity analyses, including a replication of the sample and methodology of Lev and Nissim. The results also hold in the case of firms not suspected of earnings management. In fact, 1 find only limited evidence that the results are stronger in the presence of earnings management. Overall, my study suggests that it is only the temporary component of BTDs that is related to future firm performance, with non-temporary differences being related to future tax expense changes, and that these results are primarily due to underlying economic factors, not earnings management.en_US
dc.description.sponsorshipCommittee in charge: David Guenther, Chairperson, Accounting; Steven Matsunaga, Member, Accounting; Linda Krull, Member, Accounting; Glen Waddell, Outside Member, Economicsen_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1794/10224
dc.language.isoen_USen_US
dc.publisherUniversity of Oregonen_US
dc.relation.ispartofseriesUniversity of Oregon theses, Dept. of Accounting, Ph. D., 2009;
dc.subjectBook-tax differencesen_US
dc.subjectTaxable incomeen_US
dc.subjectEarnings qualityen_US
dc.subjectDeferred taxesen_US
dc.subjectEarnings managementen_US
dc.subjectEarnings growthen_US
dc.subjectAccountingen_US
dc.titleBook-tax differences and earnings growthen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Jackson_Mark_phd2009sp.pdf
Size:
1.1 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
thesis
License bundle
Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
Name:
license.txt
Size:
2.21 KB
Format:
Item-specific license agreed upon to submission
Description:
Name:
Jackson_Mark.pdf
Size:
27.35 KB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
author's permission