The importance of Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) audits to the administration of the Canadian tax system is self-evident. So is the need for CRA to conduct high-quality audits. While audit outcomes are subject to appeals and court challenge, it is not desirable to rely frequently on appeals and the...

Many countries have imposed tax policies that limit the deductibility of interest costs, creating a plausibly exogenous increase in the net cost of borrowing. The limits are based on financial accounting numbers, adding a new incentive into managers’ choices. Firms in these countries are also...

We examine tax-motivated profit shifting as the outcome of corporate governance characteristics in multinational enterprises (MNEs). We propose a novel subsidiary-year measure of profit shifting, estimated from the responses of subsidiary profits to exogenous parent earnings shocks....

Using a survey of tax executives from multinational corporations, we document that some firms set their transfer pricing strategy to minimize tax payments, but more firms focus on tax compliance. We estimate that a firm focusing on minimizing taxes has a GAAP effective tax rate that is 6.6...

There is room for improvement in the Canadian Revenue Agency's (CRA) auditing process, according to a new report from the C.D. Howe Institute. In “Auditing the Auditors: Tax Auditors' Assessments and Incentives,” author Kenneth J. Klassen proposes that, in addition to traditional measures,...

In this study, we shed light on the combined effect of corporate income tax and other government policies on multinational corporations’ (MNCs) strategic location and relocation of intellectual property. Using granular affiliate-level data for worldwide MNCs, we show that the location of...

Using confidential data from the Internal Revenue Service on who signs a corporation’s tax return, we investigate whether the party primarily responsible for the tax compliance function of the firm — the auditor, an external non-auditor, or the internal tax department — is related to the...

Voluntary tax disclosure has become increasingly important in corporate sustainability reporting, particularly following new standards introduced by the Global Reporting Initiative combined with heightened public pressure and stakeholder demands. We examine tax aggressiveness and country...