Using as a natural experiment, the German corporate tax rate decrease in 2001, this paper studies the effect of tax accounting incentives on financial statements in a setting where book-tax conformity is strong. We find that companies that generally balance their overall accounting strategy,...

German municipalities levy local business taxes by choosing a tax rate to apply to local business income, where the tax base is defined uniformly at the national level. Before the federal government's imposition of a minimum tax rate in 2004, some municipalities such as the tiny North Sea town...