1. Review of archival tax research: Are there any big potatoes left? ATA Doctoral Consortium Thomas Omer University of Nebraska-Lincoln

2. A Brief History of Tax (Time) In the beginning – I have no idea, I was not there – You might ask Ed Outslay 1983 AAA Doctoral Consortium – Mark Wolfson informs participants there is only one tax paper in JAR (his) 1989 Tax Camp – Scholes and Wolfson Framework 2001 Shackelford and Shevlin Review 2010 Hanlon and Heitzman Review 20?? Where might we go? – Back to the Future-Scholes and Wolfson Framework

3. Recent Literature Non-Tax Costs Tax Strategy Tax Risk Avoidance versus Aggression Firm Characteristics Observe Tax Related Outcomes Inferences

4. Scholes and Wolfson Revisited Non-Tax Costs – Have we adequately explored the contexts in which these are important and the measures that are representative of the construct? Tax Strategy – We use the words “tax strategy” but can we really identify one? Do we need to borrow some theory from other literatures? – Can we identify attributes of tax strategy that are more important and used in practice? Adaptability, Reversibility, Assurance (SW Chapter 7) – Will these change our inferences about firm behavior?

5. Scholes and Wolfson Revisited Tax Risk – How do we measure this construct? – This is likely a moderator of tax outcomes

6. Field of “Big Potatoes”? Non-Tax Costs? Tax Strategy? Aggression Level Adaptability? Reversibility? Assurance? Tax Risk? Tax Related Outcomes

7. Suggestions for Finding “Big Potatoes” Think of firms holistically – Currently, we model individual parts without really considering the collective interrelations of the parts. Confirmatory Factor Analysis/Structural Equation Modeling Think of strategy as a collection of decisions overtime – Do firms exhibit patterns that repeat? Can we map those patterns to infer tax strategy Tax risk is not entirely explained by economic risk – Tax risk is complex interaction of many factors Many firms discuss this in their 10Ks Harder task but likely a necessary one

8. Suggestions for Finding “Big Potatoes” Ask somebody – Practitioner surveys/Client surveys – Develop archival tests of survey results (This is happening, but there is some resistance to survey research) Don’t assume we know something we don’t – Mixed prior literature or poor proxies for underlying constructs What is non-avoidance? – If firms are not avoiding, what are they doing, and are there real effects to be observed? How do firms avoid? – Analogous to the real earnings management versus accruals management literature Do we have innate avoidance and discretionary avoidance and can we separate them

9. Thank you!