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We investigate a tax avoidance strategy where firms use the ambiguity inherent in tax reporting to classify indirect costs as research and development (R&D) expenditures to take advantage of the R&D tax credit. We label this tax practice “strategic R&D classification”. We find a one standard deviation increase in strategic R&D classification leads, on average, to a 1.7% (1.5%) reduction in GAAP (cash) effective tax rates, suggesting this practice provides significant tax savings. However, we also find strategic R&D classification is related to both the level and changes in uncertain tax benefit liabilities required to be recognized under FIN 48, suggesting this practice comes with financial reporting costs. Our study contributes to the literature by documenting some of the costs and benefits associated with a previously unexplored tax strategy, and highlights the limitations faced by tax authorities in monitoring firms’ R&D tax credit.

We investigate the consequences of increased compensation disclosure transparency on the pay for chief executive officers (CEOs) in firms that are more prone to a misalignment between manager and shareholder interests. Prior research documents that acquiring CEOs' pay is insensitive to poor post-deal performance after firms complete large acquisitions. Using the 2006 Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) compensation disclosure regulation as our empirical setting, we find that this result disappears after firms begin to provide more transparent compensation disclosure. Our cross-sectional analyses show that acquiring firms with higher quality compensation disclosure exhibit greater CEO pay sensitivity to poor post-deal performance after 2006. Our findings indicate that increased compensation disclosure transparency helps strengthen the relation between CEO pay and poor performance in acquiring firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Contemporary Accounting Research is the property of Canadian Academic Accounting Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study investigates the role of financial reporting quality in merger and acquisition (M&A) deals that are ultimately terminated (i.e., go bust). If a target is a U.S. publicly traded company, an acquirer's initial assessment of the potential benefits associated with the acquisition of the company is based on publicly available information. Generally, the acquirer obtains limited private information from the target prior to announcing the deal, but engages in transactional due diligence after signing the acquisition agreement to affirm that the financial reporting warranties made by the target are accurate. We construct a low-quality financial reporting score based on measures prior research identifies as being associated with less reliable, less relevant, and less precise financial reporting. We find that acquirers offer higher premiums for targets with low-quality financial reporting. However, we also find that low-quality financial reporting increases the likelihood of deal renegotiation, and contributes to the probability of deals going bust. We document that failed targets are more likely to restate their financial statements after the announcement of the deal, supporting our conjecture that low-quality financial reporting contributes to deals being terminated. Our research develops a new measure of low-quality financial reporting, documents that the measure is related to M&A deal outcomes and financial restatements, and provides insights into the consequences of M&A transactional due diligence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior studies report a decline or no change in acquirers’ profitability after a merger or business acquisition. Those studies, however, do not consider the downward impact on profitability that stems from use of the ‘‘purchase accounting’’ (and in later periods, ‘‘acquisition’’) method for business combinations. Drawing on financial statement data from both targets and acquirers, we estimate the effects of the application of purchase/acquisition method accounting rules on post-acquisition profitability. We find that recognition rules for acquired inventories, deferred revenues, in-process research and development (IPR&D), and depreciation and amortization expense resulting from writing acquired assets up to fair value vis-á-vis purchase/acquisition accounting methods are all important sources of downward pressure in post-acquisition profitability. We find that investors and analysts appear to recognize the effects of IPR&D in assessing post-acquisition profitability of the combined entity. The findings also suggest that investors and analysts do not appear to fully incorporate the accounting effects related to inventories, deferred revenues, and depreciation and amortization expense for post-acquisition profitability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]