The Effects of Economic and Social Bonds with Clients on Tax Professionals' Recommendations

Abstract

This study provides new insights about how tax professionals' economic and social relationships with clients separately and jointly affect tax professionals' propensity to recommend aggressive tax positions to clients when resolving ambiguous issues. In an experiment with 133 practicing tax professionals, we manipulate the economic importance of the client and client identification (a social construct). We find that as the economic importance of the client increases, professional recommendations follow an inverted U-shaped pattern. Tax professionals more strongly recommend aggressive positions for clients of moderate economic importance than for clients of low or high economic importance. We also find that tax professionals with high versus low client identification provide more aggressive recommendations for clients of low or moderate economic importance, but not for clients of high economic importance. This paper contributes to the literature by identifying a boundary condition on client identification that has not been considered in prior accounting research.