Taxation influences upon the market in venture capital trust stocks: theory and practice

American Accounting Association Annual Meeting, Florida, USA, August 2004 and British Accounting Association Annual Conference, York, April 200

Fair value in financial reporting: problems and pitfalls in practice - A case study analysis of the use of fair valuation at Enron.

Authors' draft originalyl issued as working paper. Final version published in Accounting forum. Available online at http://www.sciencedirect.comThis paper contributes to the debate on the use of mark to market accounting in financial reporting by means of a case study-based examination of the use of mark to market accounting by Enron Corp. in the years immediately preceding its collapse. Set in the context of historical developments in and theoretical discussion upon asset valuation and income measurement, the case study highlights: (i) the ease with which Enron was able to ‘monetize’ physical assets so as to bring them within the remit of mark to market accounting; (ii) the unreliability of valuation estimates provided by independent third parties; and (iii) the asymmetry between management desire to recognise mark to market gains through the income statement in contrast to their desire to avoid recognising mark to market losses. Notwithstanding the particular features of the Enron case, it is argued in the paper that these issues are generic and should be taken into account by standard setters as they move toward encouraging more widespread use of mark to market accounting under IAS 39, SFAS 157 and previous statements, and by other regulators with an interest in the provision of financial information to the capital markets, such as the SEC in the US, the FSA/FRC in the UK, and the ASIC/FRC in Australia

Dividend valuation, trading and transactions costs: the 1997 partial abolition of dividend tax credit repayments

An earlier version of this article appeared as Accounting Working Papers 04/08Although UK resident tax-exempt shareholders lost the right to repayment of tax credits oil dividends paid by UK resident companies in July 1997, they could continue to receive tax credit repayments in respect of dividend, received from Irish resident companies until December 1998. In July 1997 the rate of tax credit on Irish companies' dividends was 21%, and this was reduced to 11% in December 1997. We obtain insights into the incentives and behavior of UK tax-exempt investors in response to these changes in the relative 'tax attractiveness' of investments in Irish resident companies. We find that only at its highest rate, 21%, was the level of dividend tax credit on Irish companies' dividends sufficient to induce changes in UK tax-exempt shareholders' investment strategies: and that the propensity lot dividend capture by tax-exempt investors is heightened when the dividend tax credit yield is of the order of 0.8% or more and dividend yield is of the order of 2.6% or more

Earnings management and deferred tax

This study analyses the deferred tax provisions of firms during a period in which the firms' incentive to manage earnings may have been be particularly strong and in which firms made disclosures in relation to partial deferred tax provisions which revealed readily their under- or over-provision of deferred tax. Using a sample of 58 firms for the two years 1991 and 1992, the magnitude of the under- or over-provisions found is economically significant, amounting, on average, to around 20% of the maximum potential deferred tax liability and, more important, 9% of profit or loss before tax. This paper takes such under- and over-provision of deferred tax and investigates its relationship with a number of posited explanatory variables - as derived and developed from the earnings management literature. In a multivariate setting it is found that the level of under-/over-provision is related to the following characteristics: whether the firm is reporting a pre-tax loss or a pre-tax profit; the extent of adjustment to prior year tax; and the level of surplus advance corporation tax (ACT). These findings support a general profit- smoothing hypothesis, and the finding in relation to ACT suggests that firms take an overall view in determining the required level of provision in order to manage earnings, rather than concentrating upon particular line items. There is also weaker evidence of a relationship between the level of under-/over-provision and firms' levels of gearing and effective tax rates

Dividend valuation, trading and transactions costs: the 1997 partial abolition of dividend tax credit repayments

Although UK resident tax-exempt shareholders lost the right to repayment of tax credits on dividends paid by UK resident companies in July 1997, they could continue to receive tax credit repayments in respect of dividends received from Irish resident companies until December 1998. In July 1997 the rate of tax credit on Irish companies' dividends was 21%, and this was reduced to 11% in December 1997. We obtain insights into the incentives and behaviour of UK tax-exempt investors in response to these changes in the relative ‘tax attractiveness’ of investments in Irish resident companies. We find that only at its highest rate, 21%, was the level of dividend tax credit on Irish companies' dividends sufficient to induce changes in UK tax-exempt shareholders' investment strategies; and that the propensity for dividend capture by tax-exempt investors is heightened when the dividend tax credit yield is of the order of 0.8 or more and dividend yield is of the order of 2.6% or more