By exploiting the four distinctive elements of accounting for income taxes, scholars can use the tax accounts to address questions that would otherwise be difficult, if not impossible, to address using other accounts. Indeed, a motivation (often implicit) of many AFIT studies is that the tax accounts provide a unique opportunity to study important questions. For example, studies of earnings management in the tax accounts either explicitly or implicitly consider both that tax expense is not included in operating income as well as the inherent tradeoff of managing earnings when there is an adversarial party involved. Likewise, many of the studies on the tax contingency focus on the new disclosures required by FIN 48, and how that affects firms given that the tax authorities will see that information. Having noted that some unique AFIT attributes have been exploited to study earnings management and tax contingencies, we also highlight that there appear to be additional opportunities for studies of accounting for income taxes to further exploit its distinctive features. We note some of these opportunities in our suggestions for future research.