Earnings Management through Effective Tax Rates 449
CAR
Vol. 25 No. 2 (Summer 2008)
about auditor independence and the provision of tax services. By considering both
the incentive to meet earnings targets and the payment to auditors and nonauditors
for tax services, we provide additional evidence on whether the payment of tax
fees to auditors is associated with opportunistic financial reporting of earnings and
ultimately whether these additional restrictions may be effective. Finally, consistent
with Healy and Wahlen 1999, we contribute to earnings management research
by focusing on specific accruals, which improves the likelihood of discerning
between earnings management and effective tax planning as the reason for
decreases in ETRs.
The remainder of this paper proceeds as follows. Section 2 provides our background
and hypotheses. Section 3 discusses our data and methodology. Section 4
provides results, and section 5 concludes.
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