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Department of the Treasury Internal Revenue Service Department of the Treasury Internal Revenue Service Mark W. Everson Commissioner Mark J. Mazur Director, Research, Analysis, and Statistics Janice M. Hedemann Director, Office of Research IRS Research Bulletin Recent Research on Tax Administration and Compliance Selected Papers Given at the 2006 IRS Research Conference Georgetown University School of Law Washington, DC June 14-15, 2006 Compiled and Edited by James Dalton and Beth Kilss* Statistics of Income Division Internal Revenue Service *Prepared under the direction of Janet McCubbin, Chief, Special Studies Branch IRS Research Bulletin iii Foreword This edition of the IRS Research Bulletin (Publication 1500) features selected papers from the latest IRS Research Conference, held at the Georgetown Uni- versity School of Law in Washington, DC, on June 14-15, 2006. Conference presenters and attendees included researchers from all areas of IRS, represen- tatives of other government agencies (including from the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand), and academic and private sector experts on tax policy, tax administration, and tax compliance. The conference began with a keynote address by Mark Matthews, Deputy Commissioner for Services and Enforcement. Mr. Matthews emphasized the importance of using high-quality data and analysis to drive key decisions. Mark Mazur, Director, Research, Analysis and Statistics, then led a panel discus- sion on compliance and administrative aspects of tax reform. The panelists, including former Assistant Secretaries for Tax Policy Pamela Olson and Ronald Pearlman, former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax Analysis Leonard Burman, and Jane Gravelle of the Congressional Research Service, emphasized the need to use data and analysis to inform policies as they are first being formulated, rather than after positions have hardened. The remainder of the conference included sessions on corporate compliance, measuring individual compliance, uses of tax data, the role of third parties in tax administration and compliance, and new approaches to compliance administration. We hope that this volume will enable IRS executives, managers, employ- ees, and stakeholders to stay abreast of the latest trends and research findings affecting Federal tax administration. The research featured here is intended to provide a starting place from which to conduct further analysis. Acknowledgments This volume was prepared by Paul Bastuscheck and Heather Lilley and edited by James Dalton and Beth Kilss, all of the Statistics of Income Division. The authors of the papers are responsible for their content, and views expressed in these papers do not necessarily represent the views of the Department of the Treasury or the Internal Revenue Service. iv IRS Research Bulletin The Conference itself was the result of substantial effort and preparation over a number of months by many people. Melissa Kovalick and Bobbie Vaira arranged for the conference venue, conducted registration and oversaw myriad details to ensure that the Conference ran smoothly. The conference program was assembled by a program committee that represented research groups throughout the IRS. Members of the program committee included Mark Mazur (Director, Office of Research, Analysis and Statistics), Janice Hedemann (Director, Office of Research), Janet McCubbin (Statistics of Income Division), Joel Friedman (Wage and Investment Division), Curt Hopkins (Small Business/Self-Employed Division), Elizabeth Kruse (Office of Program Evaluation and Risk Analysis), Alan Plumley (Office of Research) and David Stanley (Large and Midsize Business Division). We appreciate the contributions of everyone who helped make this Conference a success. Janice Hedemann Director, Office of Research Janet McCubbin Statistics of Income Division Co-chairpersons, 2006 IRS Research Conference December 2006 Editors’ Note: The papers included in this volume may also be found on the IRS web site at http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/index.html. From this page, click on “Conference Papers” under “Products, Publications, & Papers.” The papers are listed under “IRS Research Conferences: 2006” in alphabetical order by title of session and title of paper. IRS Research Bulletin v 2006 IRS Research Conference Contents Foreword ....................................................................................... iii 1. Corporate Tax Administration and Compliance v Is the Tax Expense Estimate Improved or Biased in the Presence of Using the Same Tax and Audit Firm?, Cristi A. Gleason and Lillian F. Mills .............................................. 3 v A First Look at the 2004 Schedule M-3 Reporting by Large Corporations, Charles Boynton, Ellen Legel, and Portia DeFilippes ........................................................................... 39 2. Individual Compliance Analysis and Modeling v Understanding Taxpayer Behavior and Assessing Potential IRS Interventions Using Multiagent Dynamic-Network Simulation, Kathleen M. Carley and Daniel T. Maxwell ................................... 93 v Longitudinal Study of EITC Claimants, Karen Masken .............. 107 3. Uses of Tax Data v Calibrating Macroeconomic and Microsimulation Models to CBO’s Baseline Projections, Tracy L. Foertsch and Ralph A. Rector ............................................................................ 121 v Tax Variable Imputation in the Current Population Survey, Amy O’Hara ................................................................................. 169 vi IRS Research Bulletin 4. The Role of Third Parties in Tax Administration and Compliance v Instance-Based Classifiers for Tax Agent Modelling, Fuchun Luan, Warwick Graco, and Mark Norrie ........................ 183 v Tax Filing Experiences and Withholding Preferences of Low- and Moderate-Income Households: Preliminary Evidence from a New Survey, Michael S. Barr and Jane K. Dokko ........... 193 5. New Approaches to Compliance and Administration v The Effect of Targeted Outreach on Compliance, Peter D. Adelsheim and James L. Zanetti .....................................213 v A New Era of Tax Enforcement: From “Big Stick” to Reponsive Regulation, Sagit Leviner ............................................241 6. Appendix v Conference Program ......................................................................307 v List of Attendees ...........................................................................311 1 D Corporate Tax Administration and Compliance Gleason u Mills Boynton u Legel u DeFilippes Is the Tax Expense Estimate Improved or Biased in the Presence of Using the Same Tax and Audit Firm? Cristi A. Gleason, University of Iowa, and Lillian F. Mills, University of Texas egulators have limited firms’ ability to purchase tax services from their audit firms out of concerns that auditors permit biased reporting when Rtheir firms provide tax services to their audit clients. Auditor bias could arise either because of the economic bond generated by the magnitude of the tax services or because a qualitative conflict exists whereby auditors are reviewing the accounting arising from their own firm’s tax advice. On the other hand, providing tax services could improve the estimation of tax expense because the audit firm enjoys knowledge spillover from its tax department. That is, the audit team learns from its tax group more about the tax planning undertaken by the corporation. To date, empirical accounting research in the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) period has focused on the possibility that independence is impaired when an audit firm provides tax services to an audit client (Frankel, Johnson, and Nelson, 2002; Antle et al., 2002; DeFond, Raghunandan, and Subramanyan, 2002; Ashbaugh, LaFond, and Mayhew, 2003; Chung and Kal- lapur, 2003; Kinney, Palmrose, and Scholz, 2004; and Larker and Richardson, 2004). Accounting theory, however, provides support for both independence impairment and estimation improvement resulting from audit-provided tax services (Simunic, 1984; Beck, Frecka, and Solomon, 1988). We design tests to distinguish between these competing predictions. Our study is motivated by the ongoing debate on auditor-provided tax services. The evidence in academic research fails to find lapses in independence for auditor-provided services in general. Also, many commentators advocate permitting tax services because of the benefits of knowledge spillovers. Nev- ertheless, regulators have continued to inhibit tax services provided by auditors beyond the initial restrictions in section 2.01 of the Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002. The requirement that corporations must obtain audit committee approval for permitted nonaudit services imposes a serious friction that contributes to the decline in auditor-provided tax services (Maydew and Shackelford, 2006). Conservative audit committees are unlikely to approve such tax services based on the current lack of evidence concerning independence failures. In 4 Gleason and Mills the post-SOX climate, saying “no” is safe and easy--saying “yes” requires positive evidence. Accounting for contingencies related to IRS examinations provides a context in which the differences in competing predictions from audit theory should be especially stark. Firms estimate and record a liability (tax cushion) for the probable and estimable amount of additional tax the firm expects to lose to the IRS as a result of IRS examinations. Determining the amount of tax cushion requires judgment on the part of both management and auditors. The need for judgment provides management with an occasion to record tax benefits
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