Book-tax differences and the persistence of accounting earnings

Abstract

This study aims to examine the relationship between Book-Tax Differences and earnings quality i.e. earnings persistence in order to assess the usefulness of accounting earnings for decision making. Managers may have incentives to increase accounting or “book” earnings while simultaneously reducing taxable income, any difference in the two measures is termed the book-tax difference (BTD). As the measurement of accounting earnings and taxable income is based on two different sets of rules differences can arise because of permissible discretion in the measurement of accounting income representing genuine economic differences. However, differences could also represent earnings management or manipulation, e.g. an increase in accounting income without a corresponding increase in real assets. Consequently this has raised calls to conform accounting earnings and taxable income in an attempt to limit the misuse of the discretion and the deviation permitted between the two measures. Nevertheless, conformity is argued to cause a loss of accounting earnings informativeness which makes them less useful for decision making. Using an earnings persistence model this study aims to address: (1) Does the contribution of the BTD in the model differ from that of underlying earnings and if so, does the nature of the contribution depend on a short term or longer-term measure of the BTDs. (2) Further, when BTDs are disaggregated into their “temporary” and “permanent” sources does the nature of the contribution change. If BTDs behave differently from underlying earnings, this will support the retention of differing measures of accounting earnings and taxable income and more directly retaining discretion in measurement of accounting earnings.

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ORCID for Oliver Marnet: orcid.org/0000-0001-9450-2332

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