Measuring income tax accrual quality

Preeti Choudhary (), Allison Koester () and Terry Shevlin ()
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Preeti Choudhary: Georgetown University
Allison Koester: Georgetown University
Terry Shevlin: University of California-Irvine

Review of Accounting Studies, 2016, vol. 21, issue 1, No 3, 89-139

Abstract: Abstract We develop and validate a measure of tax accrual quality. Tax accrual quality captures variation in the extent to which the income tax accrual maps into income tax-related cash flows, with lower variation indicating a higher quality tax accrual. Low tax accrual quality arises from (1) management estimation error and (2) financial reporting standards that lead to differences between income tax expense and income tax cash flows not captured by deferred tax assets and liabilities. We validate our tax accrual quality measure by showing it is associated with firm characteristics that capture both constructs and by demonstrating it predicts future tax-related restatements and internal control material weaknesses. We illustrate the importance of our measure by showing that investors view tax expense as more informative in firms with better tax accrual quality. Future researchers can use tax accrual quality to address questions related to estimation error in the income tax account.

Keywords: Tax accrual quality; Financial reporting; Income taxes; Estimation error (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H25 M41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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DOI: 10.1007/s11142-015-9336-9

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