Although the uncertain tax contingency account is included among the other liabilities on the balance sheet, historically it has rarely been reported as a separate line item or even disclosed. Thus, the cushion has been largely unobservable to researchers (impeding scholarly work), the taxing authorities (possibly impeding their ability to detect firms that consider their tax positions potentially unsustainable under audit), or other users of the financial statements (potentially enhancing its usefulness for managing earnings). However, since 2007, a new financial reporting standard (FIN 48) has required firms to disclose the balance of the tax contingency in their financial statement footnotes. These disclosures substantially expand our understanding of the process by which firms impound the uncertainty of tax plans in their income tax expense calculation.