Do Auditor-Provided Tax Services Enhance or Impair the Value Relevance of Earnings?
研究了投资者是否对继续使用审计师提供税务服务的公司给予更低的估值，发现盈余的价值相关性与支付给审计师的税务费用比例正相关，支持知识溢出效应大于独立性威胁的观点。
ABSTRACT: Recently, some firms have decoupled their audit and tax service providers in an effort to improve the perceived credibility of their financial statements. Many firms, however, continue to rely on their current auditor for tax services. Therefore, we examine whether investors assign a lower valuation to firms that continue to use their auditor for tax services. We find that the value-relevance of earnings is increasing in the ratio of tax fees over total fees paid to the auditor. Further, for a sample of firms that switched to other providers of tax services, we find that the value-relevance of earnings is lower in the year of the switch. These findings support the notion that on average, investors perceive the benefits of auditor-provided tax services; i.e., enhanced financial reporting quality due to knowledge spillover to be greater than the costs of auditor-provided tax services; i.e., threat to auditor independence. Our findings have important implications for audit committee chairs, managers, and regulators.