Morton Pincus

The Interaction between Accrual Management and Hedging: Evidence from Oil and Gas Firms

This research investigates whether oil and gas producing firms use abnormal accruals and hedging with derivatives as substitutes to manage earnings volatility. Firms engaged in oil exploration and drilling are exposed to two kinds of risks that can cause earnings volatility: oil price risk and exploration risk. Firms can use abnormal accrual choices and/or derivatives to reduce earnings volatility caused by oil price risk, but cannot directly hedge the operational risk of unsuccessful drilling. Because hedging and using abnormal accruals are costly activities, and because prior research suggests managers do not eliminate all volatility (Haushalter 2000; Barton 2001), we expect that at the margin managers will use these smoothing mechanisms as substitutes to manage earnings volatility. Our results suggest a sequential process whereby managers of oil and gas producing firms first determine the extent to which they will use derivatives to hedge oil price risk, and then, especially in the fourth quarter, manage residual earnings volatility by trading off abnormal accruals and hedging with derivatives to smooth income.

LEGISLATIVE HISTORY OF THE ALLOWANCE OF LIFO FOR TAX PURPOSES

The legislative history of the allowance of LIFO for tax purposes is documented. The legislative process was structured around veto points of the law and yielded an examination of the political environment out of which the LIFO tax provisions emerged. LIFO provisions were analyzed relative to alternative tax options available to firms, administrative and judicial activities, overall tax legislation including tax rates, and general economic conditions. Production processes of firms lobbying for LIFO were examined and the views of academics and practitioners were incorporated. In addition to providing the basis for a regulatory event study by identifying the critical dates in the legsilative process, insight into the timing and choice of inventory accounting methods for financial reporting as well as for tax is gained.

Stock Price Behavior Associated with Post 1974-75 LIFO Adoptions Announced at Alternative Disclosure Times

We examine the behavior of stock prices at the time of post-1974–75 LIFO adoption announcements. We exploit recent theoretical and empirical developments in the LIFO adoption literature in an attempt to resolve some of the mixed findings in Hand (1993). We study LIFO adoptions announced prior to as well as at the time of annual earnings announcements. Previous research has mostly centered on 1974–75 adoptions made at the time of annual earnings announcements. Our study of LIFO adoptions announced prior to annual earnings announcement dates enables us to provide evidence on whether the early announcement of a LIFO adoption is used by firms to signal positive information about earnings growth. Collectively, our results suggest that in explaining the market response to LIFO adoption announcements, extant models of the LIFO adoption decision do not fully capture the richness of differing inflationary environments or of alternative disclosure times.

A Reexamination of the Incremental Information Content of Capital Expenditures

Under generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), firms must postpone recognition of the earnings effects of capital expenditures until they realize the resulting revenues and expenses. However, if capital expenditures change the profile of future profits, we expect share prices to impound that revision in profitability prior to its recognition under GAAP. This suggests that changes in capital expenditures should have information content beyond current-period unexpected earnings. Prior research considered annual changes in capital expenditures and detected incremental information only in restricted samples. However, we examine more general samples and observe that quarterly as well as annual changes in capital expenditures are informative beyond unexpected earnings. Furthermore, we predict greater incremental information content for fiscal fourth quarter changes in capital expenditures when considering all fiscal quarters simultaneously, because the effect of the earnings recognition delay under GAAP should be magnified for capital expenditures made late in the fiscal year. Our results are consistent with this prediction and inconsistent with the prediction that changes in fiscal fourth quarter capital expenditures reflect lower profitability that results from an inefficient bunching of capital expenditures in the fiscal fourth quarter.

Discussion of The Incremental Information Content of Financial Statement Disclosures: The Case of LIFO Inventory Liquidations

Much of the discussion focused on the expected stock market reaction to the announcement of a LIFO liquidation. In particular, the issue of tax consequences arose, and the question was asked whether the timing of a LIFO liquidation might be casually linked with the availability to a firm of tax items such as net operating loss carryforwards or unused investment tax credits. The link would depend on the particular circumstances of a firm having tax items available. For example, if the firm makes use of net operating loss carryforwards that would otherwise not have been used for one or more years, then the firm is able to postpone the LIFO liquidation tax liability, and the present value of the tax cost is lowered (assuming constant tax rates). If a firms existing tax carryforwards are sufficient to offset fully the LIFO liquidation tax cost and would have otherwise expired unused, the marginal tax rate on the liquidation-induced taxable earnings will be zero. A tax-induced market reaction becomes difficult to predict when, for instance, tax rates will change, or when the markets expectations reflect a nonzero probability of a LIFO liquidation. In the former case, a currentperiod inventory liquidation might reduce the likelihood of a future one.

IT Environment Quality and Effectiveness of Controls Over the Tax Function and Income Tax Avoidance

The complexity and frequent changes of multi-jurisdictional tax requirements generate a demand for a robust supporting information environment. If a firm’s information technology (IT) environment is not able to handle these tax complexities, that inability increases the risk of errors in the firm’s financial accounting for income taxes and the risk of ineffective tax avoidance strategies. We initially investigate the relation between IT-related material weaknesses (MWs) and tax-related MWs and find that having an IT-related MW is associated with a higher probability of having a tax-related MW. We then examine whether the quality of a firm’s IT environment influences its tax avoidance effectiveness. In addition, we find firms that restate their financial statements are more likely to disclose IT-related and tax-related MWs in advance of the year they announce that they must restate. We also show that having an IT-related MW hinders tax avoidance and that firms having a CFO with IT expertise or receiving the Most Admired Knowledge Enterprise award are also positively associated with tax avoidance. Our results are consistent with the idea that when firms have higher quality IT environments, they are more likely to have more effective controls over the tax function and similarly their tax avoidance efforts are more effective.