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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to determine the association between auditor-provided tax services (APTS) and long-term corporate tax rates. Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses empirical data and multivariate regression models to explore the relationship between a firm’s use of APTS and their long-term effective tax rate. Findings – An economically and statistically significant long-term negative relationship was found between firm levels of APTS and taxes paid. Further, a portion of this benefit is lost for some firms when returning to their auditor for tax services even after a short break. Originality/value – This paper contributes to the debate regarding the value of APTS by providing evidence of the apparent long-term negative consequences to firms who reduce their reliance on APTS, perhaps even through the engagement of separate accounting firms for their audit and tax functions, although these consequences may be mitigated upon return with a significant increase in APTS. However, this is the first study, to our knowledge, to explore, in a long-term setting, the consequences of a firm’s return to their auditors for a non-audit service previously reduced or terminated. Additionally, further incremental contributions are made to other studies that look at APTS and tax avoidance by studying the long-term relationship which allows firms to consider the cumulative cost/benefit relationship between independence and knowledge spillover.

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SYNOPSIS: We contend that tax-related information, which has not yet been considered by extant research, can significantly improve bankruptcy prediction. We investigate the association between abnormal changes in book-tax differences (BTDs) and bankruptcy using a hazard model and out-of-sample testing as in Shumway (2001). We find that information regarding abnormal changes in BTDs significantly increases our ability to ex ante identify firms that have an increased likelihood of going bankrupt in the coming five-year period. The information provided by BTDs significantly adds information to traditional models for predicting bankruptcy, such as that proposed by Ohlson (1980), and also expands the prediction window beyond the traditional two-year time frame.

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Research generally finds positive audit and tax outcomes associated with auditor-provided tax services (APTS), attributing knowledge sharing (KS) between tax and audit as the underlying cause, but not observing it. This study contributes to the APTS literature by investigating experienced audit and tax professionals’ perspectives about when and how KS occurs. Results imply that KS occurs in two phases, and is enhanced or inhibited by multiple factors related to knowledge relevance, motivation, opportunities, and culture. First, audit and tax personnel often share client information and their domain expertise while interacting during the audit, which enables identifying potentially valuable APTS. Second, further KS can occur during/following APTS performance, and APTS results may be shared back to benefit the audit. Our evidence shows that key factors may vary across phases, underscoring the importance of considering the full APTS process. Based on our findings, we suggest a number of future research opportunities.

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