The natural language that accompanies the accounting language in financial reports is not only a more or less accurate representation of the company but also, the authors argue, a response to explicit as well as implicit external demands, expectations, and accusations. Drawing on the notion of accounts (i.e., statements or responses that neutralize critique of not meeting expectations), the authors analyze the natural language in financial reports. In analyzing financial reports with the use of account theory, both individual actions and structurally anchored financial report discourse are approached. The theory of accounts helps the authors discern the fine-grained anatomy of financial reports by means of which impressions are managed, legitimacy is upheld, and the dialogue between companies and their public is maintained. The analysis demonstrates the presence of five types of accounts in the financial reports: excuse, justification, refocusing, concession, and mystification. Financial reporting is a legally and culturally regulated genre of business communication that partakes in the ongoing conversation between a company and its public. Understanding the role of accounts is needed to enhance the genre awareness and reader competence among the readers of financial reports.

Purpose The aim of this paper is to study the rhetoric of goodwill impairment, more specifically rhetoric, as it is constructed in the form of accounts (i.e. statements that explain unanticipated or untoward behavior). The authors argue that goodwill impairment is not only a technical matter but also a rhetorical practice by means of which external scrutiny is responded to. Design/methodology/approach The data corpus consists of explanations provided by corporations regarding impairment of goodwill. Data were collected from annual reports from companies quoted on NASDAQ OMX Stockholm, Sweden. The impairment explanations were analyzed according to a taxonomy of account types. The explanations were subjected to close reading to discern the potential rhetorical functions of the different accounts. Findings Seven account types are identified and discussed, namely, excuse, justification, refocusing, concession, mystification, silence and wordification. Research limitations/implications There is a need for further research that explores the process of authorship (i.e. writing, editing, negotiating and revising) through which the texts of financial communication are produced. Practical implications The findings have implications for the future formulations of standards regarding qualitative explanations in financial reporting in general and explanations of goodwill impairment in particular. Originality/value The paper contributes to the knowledge about the use of natural language and rhetoric in financial communication.

Syftet med denna artikel är att undersöka hur goodwillformuleringar i årsredovisningar legitimerar förvärv och förvärvsbeslut. Studien undersöker de 589 goodwillformuleringar som förekommer i 1323 årsredovisningstexter för åren 2005–2010 från företag noterade på Nasdaq OMX Stockholm. Texterna undersöks med intertextuella och interdiskursiva analyser kombinerat med van Leeuwens (2007) modell för legitimeringsanalys. I materialet identifieras explicita och implicita textsamspel såväl med regeltexter som med texter i egna årsredovisningar. Vi inför nyckelordsamspel för samband med regelverkets centrala begrepp. I hela 60 % av kommentarerna återkommer synergi eller sammansättningar av ordet. Texterna är språkligt legitimerande för företagsledningars förvärv framför allt genom auktorisation. Det tydligaste exemplet på detta är legitimering genom explicita och implicita textsamspel med regelverket. Legitimering genom tradition sker bland annat vid nyckelordsamspel eftersom läsarna förväntar sig genretypiska förklaringar med nyckelord från regelverket. Nyckelordsamspel legitimerar också som genom att förvärvet rationaliseras med nyckelorden. Både text- och nyckelordsamspel konstruerar alltså årsredovisningens legitimitet. Men i många stycken är det en oreflekterad reproduktion av textpassager och inte det som regelverket kräver: ”en kvalitativ beskrivning av de faktorer som utgör redovisad goodwill”.AbstractThe purpose of this paper is to investigate how goodwill comments in annual reports legitimize business acquisitions and decisions on acquisitions. The study deals with 589 goodwill comments in 1323 annual reports for the period of 2005-2010 for companies listed on Nasdaq OMX Stockholm. Intertextual analyses are combined with legitimation analysis (van Leeuwen 2007). Intertextual relations in the form of explicit intertextuality, implicit intertextuality and interdiscursivity are identified, both with the accounting standards and annual reports. We propose the notion keyword interplay for the close connections on lexical level between the comments and the accounting standards. The keyword synergy (as such and in compounds) is used in 60 % of the comments. The comments legitimize the acquisitions of the management, especially by authorization. The most obvious example of authorization is the close interplay with the accounting standards, both explicit intertextuality and implicit intertextuality. Legitimation by tradition occurs in keyword interplay as the readers of the annual reports expect genre typical comments characterized by keywords from the standards. The examples of keyword interplay also legitimize as the acquisition is rationalized with the keywords. Thus, both intertextual relations and keyword interplay construct the legitimacy of the annual report. However, this is to a great extent an unreflecting reproduction of chunks of texts and not what the accounting standards demand: “a qualitative description of the factors that make up the goodwill recognised”.

Over the past years, the scholarly discussion on tax law has focused largely on aggressive tax planning (Dourado 2015; Panayi 2015). "Aggressive tax planning" is not a legal term; it refers primarily to transactions whereby companies take advantage of discrepancies-arbitrage-between tax laws of different countries, thereby achieving a more favorable taxation than the comparable taxpayers who have no access to such tax-planning opportunities. Aggressive tax planning, then, is not a matter of evading the law, but of exploiting, for purposes of personal gain, the limitations and shortcomings of the law with regard to certain transactions. Or, as Murphy (2005) defines it: "Aggressive tax planning by its very nature involves finding ways to accomplish compliance with the letter of the law while totally undermining the policy intent or spirit behind the legislation" (p. 563). Tax planning, whereby tax arbitrages are exploited for personal gain, is not merely an issue within international taxation, however, it can also occur in domestic transactions. Differences in tax rates for different types of income

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