empirical, primarily testing the incremental information content of the tax accounts and their role in earnings
management. To provide structure for understanding this growing literature, we discuss why AFIT is distinct from other
financial reporting topics, briefly explain the essential principles that govern AFIT reporting, review extant studies,
highlight key contributions, identify specific remaining questions of interest, and discuss weaknesses and opportunities of
a more general nature.3
To our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive review of AFIT research.4 It is designed both to introduce new
scholars to this field and to encourage active researchers to expand the frontier of AFIT. It is challenging to reach such a
broad audience. For readers who have little or no understanding of the process by which firms account for income taxes in
their financial statements (the income statement, balance sheet, statement of cash flows, and the statement of equity),
we include an intuitive explanation of the rules governing AFIT in Section 3. Others may wish to skip Section 3.
To narrow the scope of our analysis, we define AFIT research as work that evaluates the implications of the financial reporting
choices involving the income tax accounts. Examples include tests of AFIT’s role in earnings management and its information
content. We exclude from our analysis those studies that use the tax accounts to analyze other phenomena. For example,
Mills (1998) tests whether differences in book and tax accounting affect Internal Revenue Service (IRS) audit decisions. Another
topic we exclude relates to work examining the association between differences in book and tax accounting and the cost of
capital (e.g., Dhaliwal et al., 2008; Ayers et al., 2009; Crabtree and Maher, 2009). While these papers are interesting and
important, we exclude them from our analysis because they evaluate the impact of AFIT, rather than studying AFIT itself.
We recognize that this delineation is arbitrary, but as with all literature reviews, we are forced to set boundaries for our analysis.
In addition, we do not discuss the sizeable literature that addresses tradeoffs between financial reporting and tax
considerations.5 Although AFIT may involve tax planning considerations, we ignore issues related to the coordination of book
and tax choices and refer readers to the Hanlon and Heitzman (2010) and Shackelford and Shevlin (2001) reviews.
Although related to traditional corporate income tax research, recent AFIT work resembles mainstream financial
accounting research far more than it resembles the ‘‘Scholes-Wolfson’’ tax research, which draws heavily from economics
and finance.6 However, there are some notable differences between AFIT and other financial reporting areas. While the
distinctions are detailed in the next section, we briefly discuss them here. First, all companies are subject to taxation,
making it one of the most pervasive financial reporting topics. Second, the taxing authority is one of the users of the tax
information in the footnotes. Thus, the tax accounts provide information to an adversarial party. Third, the tax accounts
provide an alternative measure of income. Finally, income tax expense is not included as a component of operating
income. In fact, portions of the tax expense are reported below net income in items such as discontinued operations and
other comprehensive income. These distinctive features of accounting for income taxes enable scholars to expand our
understanding of financial reporting in directions that might not be possible using other accounts.
We divide the research literature into three topics: earnings management, the association between book-tax
differences and earnings characteristics, and the equity market pricing of information in the tax accounts.7 Rather than
provide here in the introduction a detailed and lengthy review of the many inferences that we draw from the extant
literature and the directions that we propose for enhanced future study, we condense our findings into four broad
generalizations. First, managers use the tax accounts to manage earnings to meet or beat analysts’ forecasts, but not for
other objectives, such as to smooth earnings, increase a big bath, avoid losses, or meet/beat prior earnings. Second, a small
literature documents associations between book-tax differences and earnings characteristics, such as growth and
persistence. Third, the evidence is inconsistent about the market’s use of the information provided in the tax accounts.
Fourth, by eliminating a second source of income information, conforming book and tax accounting would result in a loss
of information to the market.
As mentioned above, Sections 2 and 3 provide an overview of AFIT, and Sections 4–6 review the scholarly studies in the field
empirical, primarily testing the incremental information content of the tax accounts and their role in earnings
management. To provide structure for understanding this growing literature, we discuss why AFIT is distinct from other
financial reporting topics, briefly explain the essential principles that govern AFIT reporting, review extant studies,
highlight key contributions, identify specific remaining questions of interest, and discuss weaknesses and opportunities of
a more general nature.3
To our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive review of AFIT research.4 It is designed both to introduce new
scholars to this field and to encourage active researchers to expand the frontier of AFIT. It is challenging to reach such a
broad audience. For readers who have little or no understanding of the process by which firms account for income taxes in
their financial statements (the income statement, balance sheet, statement of cash flows, and the statement of equity),
we include an intuitive explanation of the rules governing AFIT in Section 3. Others may wish to skip Section 3.
To narrow the scope of our analysis, we define AFIT research as work that evaluates the implications of the financial reporting
choices involving the income tax accounts. Examples include tests of AFIT’s role in earnings management and its information
content. We exclude from our analysis those studies that use the tax accounts to analyze other phenomena. For example,
Mills (1998) tests whether differences in book and tax accounting affect Internal Revenue Service (IRS) audit decisions. Another
topic we exclude relates to work examining the association between differences in book and tax accounting and the cost of
capital (e.g., Dhaliwal et al., 2008; Ayers et al., 2009; Crabtree and Maher, 2009). While these papers are interesting and
important, we exclude them from our analysis because they evaluate the impact of AFIT, rather than studying AFIT itself.
We recognize that this delineation is arbitrary, but as with all literature reviews, we are forced to set boundaries for our analysis.
In addition, we do not discuss the sizeable literature that addresses tradeoffs between financial reporting and tax
considerations.5 Although AFIT may involve tax planning considerations, we ignore issues related to the coordination of book
and tax choices and refer readers to the Hanlon and Heitzman (2010) and Shackelford and Shevlin (2001) reviews.
Although related to traditional corporate income tax research, recent AFIT work resembles mainstream financial
accounting research far more than it resembles the ‘‘Scholes-Wolfson’’ tax research, which draws heavily from economics
and finance.6 However, there are some notable differences between AFIT and other financial reporting areas. While the
distinctions are detailed in the next section, we briefly discuss them here. First, all companies are subject to taxation,
making it one of the most pervasive financial reporting topics. Second, the taxing authority is one of the users of the tax
information in the footnotes. Thus, the tax accounts provide information to an adversarial party. Third, the tax accounts
provide an alternative measure of income. Finally, income tax expense is not included as a component of operating
income. In fact, portions of the tax expense are reported below net income in items such as discontinued operations and
other comprehensive income. These distinctive features of accounting for income taxes enable scholars to expand our
understanding of financial reporting in directions that might not be possible using other accounts.
We divide the research literature into three topics: earnings management, the association between book-tax
differences and earnings characteristics, and the equity market pricing of information in the tax accounts.7 Rather than
provide here in the introduction a detailed and lengthy review of the many inferences that we draw from the extant
literature and the directions that we propose for enhanced future study, we condense our findings into four broad
generalizations. First, managers use the tax accounts to manage earnings to meet or beat analysts’ forecasts, but not for
other objectives, such as to smooth earnings, increase a big bath, avoid losses, or meet/beat prior earnings. Second, a small
literature documents associations between book-tax differences and earnings characteristics, such as growth and
persistence. Third, the evidence is inconsistent about the market’s use of the information provided in the tax accounts.
Fourth, by eliminating a second source of income information, conforming book and tax accounting would result in a loss
of information to the market.
As mentioned above, Sections 2 and 3 provide an overview of AFIT, and Sections 4–6 review the scholarly studies in the field
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