The Information Content of Tax Expense for Firms Reporting Losses
研究了管理层对递延税资产估值备抵的确认决策是否提供了关于会计亏损持续性的增量信息，发现税收分类能预测未来三年亏损持续性，且投资者定价受税收信号显著性和信息环境影响。
ABSTRACT We investigate whether management's decision regarding the recognition of the valuation allowance (VA) for deferred tax assets provides incremental information about the persistence of accounting losses. We introduce a classification scheme that assigns loss firm‐years into three categories based on whether management appears to have recognized a material change in the VA, and whether or not the firm has positive taxable income (e.g., a net operating loss). The results of our study show that our tax categories contain information about the persistence of accounting losses over the following three years beyond variables previously identified to predict loss persistence. This incremental information is consistent with management using private information about the firm's future prospects in setting the VA. Finally, we find that investors’ pricing of the VA varies with the saliency of the tax signal and the information environment of the firm.