The Effect of Paid Preparer Competition on Individual Tax Avoidance

This study considers how competition among paid preparers affects individual tax avoidance. Merging individual tax return data reported to the IRS at the county level with household income reported by the U.S Census Bureau, along with supply of paid preparer establishments from the National Employment Time Series (“NETS”) database, we observe that paid preparer competition is positively associated with underreporting of income, consistent with competition facilitating client appeasement for avoiding more taxes. Our results are robust to various proxies for paid preparer competition and tax avoidance. In additional analysis, we note that our findings are stronger in counties whose taxpayers more frequently engage a paid preparer and among establishments that do not purport to be a CPA firm. This study contributes to our understanding of how competition impacts financial intermediaries’ decision-making and the environmental factors affecting paid tax preparers’ recommendations

Synthetic, enzyme kinetic, and protein crystallographic studies of C-[béta]-D-glucopyranosyl pyrroles and imidazoles reveal and explain low nanomolar inhibition of human liver glycogen phosphorylase

LBK

Real-time adaptive active control of sound fields

A general strategy is developed for the attenuation of sound in three-dimensional acoustic fields. This strategy includes a classification scheme for active noise control problems based on characterizations of the noise source, the acoustic field, the desired attenuation, and the control system. This classification scheme provides a framework for the analysis of active noise control problems. A strategy for choosing transducer locations for active noise control systems is developed based on analysis of acoustic systems as well as recommendations from the active noise control literature. Both adaptive and non-adaptive active noise control algorithms are developed based on minimum variance feedback control theory. Simulations of these controllers show them to be very effective and provide useful guidelines for the implementations. Implementations of these controllers are described. The use of measurable disturbances and additional outputs is incorporated into the adaptive controller. This approach is shown to be useful for certain combinations of disturbances. When additional outputs are used, the control is referred to as pseudo-feedforward control