1. Introduction
Dhaliwal, Gleason, and Mills (hereafter DGM) (2004) examine whether firms
manage earnings through changes in their effective tax rates (ETRs) between the
third and fourth quarters. They assert that changes in ETRs are consistent with
earnings management because tax expense is one of the last accounts closed in
determining reported earnings. We support the DGM 2004 argument that tax
expense represents an opportunity for firms to manage earnings and address three
issues related to earnings management using changes in ETRs. First, we attempt to
determine the extent to which the magnitude of tax fees paid to auditors is associated
with third-to-fourth-quarter ETR changes. Tax fees paid to auditors likely are
used for tax planning that affects both taxable and financial income; by adding tax
fees paid to auditors to the DGM 2004 model, we attempt to determine the extent
to which changes in ETRs relate to tax-planning strategies that include joint taxable
and financial income effects. Mills, Erickson, and Maydew (1998) suggest
that investments in tax planning result in decreased ETRs; thus, we extend DGM
2004 by exploring a plausible additional explanation for third-to-fourth-quarter
decreases in ETRs that they acknowledge as a limitation of their study. Specifically,
we investigate the extent to which greater third-to-fourth-quarter ETR reductions
are associated with higher tax fees paid to auditors for firms that would miss their
consensus earnings forecasts absent ETR changes (relative to firms that would otherwise
reach or exceed these income goals).