Journal of International Accounting Auditing and Taxation最新文献

In the presence of high uncertainty and asymmetric information, firms might opportunistically shift earnings from uncertain to more certain times. Thus, this paper examines how investor perceptions and risk-taking behavior fluctuate under high economic uncertainty and how earnings quality influences stock return synchronicity and analyst forecast accuracy during periods of high uncertainty. Using a large sample obtained from 24 countries worldwide over the period from 1997 to 2017, we find that investors take a bearish attitude and stocks are more synchronized during years with high economic uncertainty. Furthermore, we find a negative association between analyst forecast accuracy and economic uncertainty. Second, a low level of investor protection indicates a low level of market sentiment. Third, stocks become more synchronous and analyst forecasts are more accurate during periods of high investor sentiment and in the presence of higher levels of earnings quality. Fourth, higher stock return synchronicity implies greater analyst forecast accuracy. Overall, we show that all these effects are more intense during periods of high economic uncertainty.

In this paper, we demonstrate that negative language is employed as a mechanism through which regulators express their differentiated level of concern and pass on stronger messages to riskier reviewees. We investigate the language tone employed by the internationally-influential United States (US) Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in comment letters to foreign firms, which are considered riskier in comparison with their US domestic counterparts. We find a significantly greater level of language negativity in comment letters addressed to foreign registrants. We further show that the negativity of language is more intense when foreign firms are domiciled in strong-law countries and when they do not apply US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). We offer implications for regulators, managers, and market participants.

This study examines private companies’ tax aggressiveness and its changes in response to interventions by the government tax administration. While scholars have researched authorities’ interventions extensively, this study is the first to consider the “light” technique of tax adjustments made by the tax administration immediately after the firm submits its tax return. We utilized a large-scale proprietary dataset obtained from Finland’s tax administration (covering 85,155 firm–years), the hypotheses addressed the relationship between the firm’s level of tax aggressiveness and the tax-administration intervention (H1) and that between the intervention and companies’ response to it (H2). The empirical findings support both hypotheses. Its lightweight nature notwithstanding, the pre-tax-audit intervention can serve as a tool for ameliorating firms’ overly tax-aggressive behavior. Finally, we present management implications that should be of interest to tax administrations and regulatory authorities, related to the potential effectiveness of a tax administration’s monitoring processes in mitigating the tax aggressiveness of private companies.

Advances in data analytics is fundamentally changing the field of auditing. The primary objective of this paper is to develop a holistic, multidimensional framework to better understand the dynamics of the diffusion of audit data analytics (ADA). The framework we developed covers categories related to the diffusion of ADA (the technology, the actors using it, and the external rules that regulate it) and the actors reproducing the rules and technologies (focusing on the audit and cognitive processes). We analyze the key findings from 40 empirical studies within and across the interrelated categories of the framework. The findings emphasize that a better understanding of auditors’ judgment and decision making (cognitive processes) is fundamental for a study of the diffusion of ADA. Primary drivers of fundamental changes include audit quality, audit efficiency, and the expectation gap. Our results suggest that ADA competencies should be a professional priority. In addition, conceptual issues (the audit risk model, audit evidence, and audit assertions) and materiality considerations need to be resolved. A solution for these problems is a prerequisite for in-depth changes to audit standards, which in turn will also open the door to the diffusion of ADA.