> Institute of Accounting and Taxation University of Mnster

2013 Annual Review

Highlights 3rd EIASM Workshop on Current Research in Taxation | Completed Dissertations | Visiting Scholars

VT Summer School | Ph.D. Seminars on Empirical Tax Research | Outstanding Tax Student Awards

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> Contents

Institute of Accounting and Taxation University of Mnster

Universittsstr. 14-16 48143 Mnster, Germany Tel.: +49 251 83 22880 Fax: +49 251 83 21824

iub@wiwi.uni-muenster.de | www.iub-muenster.de

Research 3rd Workshop on Current Research in Taxation 04 Conference Participation 06 Mnster Accounting Workshop Presentations 08 Completed Dissertations 09 Visiting Scholars 13 Publications 14

Teaching Ph.D. Seminars 15 Outstanding Tax Student Awards 16 Course Program in 2013 17 VT Summer School 18 INTOP Seminar 19

Network Sponsoring Partners 21 Society for the Promotion of Accounting and Taxation 21

Editorial 03

Impressions 22

Layout and Editing: Dr. Gerrit Lietz gerrit.lietz@wiwi.uni-muenster.de

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We are pleased to present to you the 2013 edition of our annual review, which provides an illustrat-ed overview of the diverse research and teaching activities that shaped the Institutes past year.

In July for the third consecutive time, we gladly hosted the EIASM Workshop on Current Research in Taxation. The meeting once again turned out to be a great success with participants from 14 dif-ferent countries, numerous interesting research paper presentations and prolific discussions. Most certainly, the workshop found two excellent and dedicated keynote speakers in Professors Scott Dyreng and Douglas Shackelford.

We also expanded our international focus by pre-senting work in progress on several conference occasions in the U.S., across Europe and at home. For the first time, a delegation of our insti-tute was invited to present a working paper at the Illinois Symposium on Tax Research. Another pa-per was discussed at the National Tax Association Conference in Tampa, and many of my Ph.D. stu-dents joined me in attending the annual meetings of the EAA in Paris and the AAA in Anaheim.

A newly created Ph.D. seminar Empirical Tax Re-search was successfully launched in summer. It

Editorial <

Director Prof. Dr. Christoph Watrin Dean Mnster School of Business and Economics Office Britta Heitmann Petra von Oppenkowski Assistant Professors Dr. Adrian Kubata Dr. Robert Ullmann Research Assistants / Ph.D. Students David Eberhardt Dr. Gerrit Lietz Fabian Riegler Martin Thomsen Dr. Tim Wagener

Guest Lecturers Dr. Rainer Braun Judge, Fiscal Court Cologne Steffen Gnutzmann WTS Hamburg Norbert Graetz Deloitte Dsseldorf Dr. Carsten Hink AWB Mnster Thorsten Hunkenschrder pwc Osnabrck Dr. Stefan Mense pwc Osnabrck Frank Nordhoff KPMG Dortmund Hugo van Bremen FH Mnster Robert Welzel WTS Frankfurt Dr. Ansas Wittkowski LeMaitre Taxperience Munich Student Assistants Alexander Brune Nikola Frieburg Antje Messink Jonas Metz Samira Rahimi Martin Sattler Sven Tietz Benedikt Wischer

further complements our Business Schools struc-tured Ph.D. program by offering students a smooth entry to seminal and up-to-date empirical literature in the field of tax research.

Last but not least, it has been a great pleasure to welcome a number of guests to Mnster, who much enriched our academic year professionally and personally. Prof. Elisabetta Mafrolla from lUniversit di Foggia came to Mnster for the summer while Si-mona Jirskov from the VE University Prague smoothly integrated as a visiting Ph.D. student. In addition, many outstanding researchers followed invitations to present and discuss their diverse studies in our Accounting Workshop. We were pleased to welcome so many of you in Mnster and surely benefit from your valuable input!

The coming pages provide additional insights and many more impressions. We hope you enjoy the read and look forward to another year of fruitful exchange and collaboration.

Sincerely yours,

Dear colleagues and friends of the Institute,

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> 3rd EIASM Workshop on Current Research in Taxation

The Workshop on Current Research in Taxation,

hosted jointly with the European Institute for Ad-vanced Studies in Management, was held in Mn-

ster for the third time on July 1 and 2, 2013. The an-nual conference, which has the goal to bring togeth-

er international scholars working on current issues in taxation, was co-chaired this year by Professor

Christoph Watrin together with Professor Christoph

Spengel from the University of Mannheim.

In their role as experienced keynote speakers, Pro-fessors Douglas Shackelford from the Kenan-Flagler

Business School (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) and Scott Dyreng from the Fuqua

School of Business (Duke University) took the floor

to kick off the meeting by providing a brief overview of the past, the present, and the future of tax re-

search. Their vivid presentation highlighted the un-abated demand for empirical research in this field

and pointed out a number of interesting issues re-lated to corporate tax planning behavior.

For example, research has not yet provided satisfac-

tory answers as to how well corporate earnings ex-plain corporate taxes paid, what explains the large

observable variation in corporate effective tax rates, and whether the decline in foreign ETRs is driven by

an increase in foreign tax haven use or through oth-er available channels. More broadly, in the light of

growing political debates and pressures for reform,

it is far from clear what ultimately defines a broken tax system and how it can be fixed.

Throughout their illustrative introduction, Shackel-ford and Dyreng consistently stressed the great po-

tential of research to inform tax policy on various levels, for instance by providing novel insights as to

which types of real activities are encouraged or dis-couraged by the tax system, identifying which indi-

viduals ultimately bear the corporate tax burden, or what inefficiencies (e.g. investment or accounting

distortions) may be caused by corporate taxes.

Workshop on Current Research in Taxation Past co-chairs and keynote speakers Co-chairs with Prof. Christoph Watrin Keynote speakers

2011 Prof. Eva Eberhartinger (Vienna University) Prof. Michelle Hanlon (MIT) Prof. Edward Maydew (UNC)

2012 Prof. Andreas Oestreicher (University of Gttingen) Prof. Jennifer Blouin (Wharton) Prof. John Robinson (Texas at Austin)

2013 Prof. Christoph Spengel (University of Mannheim) Prof. Scott Dyreng (Duke) Prof. Douglas Shackelford (UNC)

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In subsequent workshop sessions running over two days, participating

scholars from more than 20 different universities located in 14 different countries presented and discussed their empirical work in progress.

Topical examples include working papers on tax-driven location deci-sions, cross-border profit shifting, the estimation and effects of tax loss

carry-forwards, transfer pricing in large multinational enterprises, or potential interactions between tax aggressiveness and earnings in-

formativeness.

Participants unanimously praised the workshops productive atmos-phere, the high degree of internationality, and the outstanding keynote

speakers who took on the journey to Mnster. We very much appreciate Professor Shackelford and Dyrengs visit, who played a significant part in contributing to the great success of this years conference.

The next Workshop will be held from June 30th to July 1st 2014. On that occasion, we are excited to welcome Professor Dhammika Dharmapala

(University of Illinois) and Professor Kevin Markle (University of Water-loo) as experienced keynote speakers. We are looking forward to many

interesting paper submissions and to see many of you in Mnster!

Announcement

4th Workshop on Current Research in Taxation

Mnster, June 30 - July 01, 2014 Keynote speakers:

Professor Dhammika Dharmapala University of Illinois

Professor Kevin Markle University of Waterloo

3rd EIASM Workshop on Current Research in Taxation <

www.eiasm.org

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> Conference Participation

National Tax Association Annual Conference

In November, Tim Wagener attend-ed the 106th Annual Conference on Taxation, organized by the National Tax Association NTA. The

conference, at which economists, lawyers, and ac-countants discuss current topics in the field of taxa-

tion, took place in Tampa, Florida.

Tim Wagener presented the paper The Relevance of Complex Group Structures for Income Shifting and Investors Valuation of Tax Avoid-ance (with Christoph Watrin). He also served as a discussant on Ruud de Mooijs and Jost Heckemey-ers paper Taxation and Corporate Leverage: The Difference between Banks and Non-Banks.

Illinois Symposium on Tax Research

A working paper from the Institute of Accounting and Taxation was accepted for presentation at the

bi-annual University of Illinois Sympo-

sium on Tax Research on September

20, 2013. The conference offers an

excellent opportunity to interact with leading tax researchers from all over

the US. A selected group of around a hundret partic-ipants attended the symposium in Chicago, Illinois.

Martin Thomsen opened the conference with his

presentation of the paper titled The Impact of Tax-es on Location Decisions (with Robert Ullmann and Christoph Watrin). The session was moderated by

Paul Beck (University of Illinois). Two discussants

were assigned to the paper: The academic perspec-tive was provided by Professor Scott Dyreng (Duke)

while the practical side was covered by Larry Salus (Federal Tax Director of Reynolds Group Holdings,

Inc.). Their comments and the subsequent discus-

sion with the audience proved very valuable for fur-ther revisions of the paper. It has been an interest-

ing experience to participate in this small and fo-

cused conference that brought together a large part

of the American tax research community.

VHB / IAAER Accounting Conference

The annual meeting of the German Accounting Sec-

tion within the Academic Association for Business Research VHB jointly with the

International Association for Accounting

Education and Research IAAER took place in Frank-furt, Germany from February 14 to 16. It was held

under the theme Accounting Research: Diversity within Unity and generously sponsored by EY. The paper A new Method to Discover Earnings Manage-ment that aims at Meeting (or Beating) Earnings

Targets (by Robert Ullmann and Christoph Watrin) was accepted for presentation with a discussant.

Robert Ullmann presented the paper and received

suggestions that helped to further improve the man-uscript. It was also, once

again, a great opportunity to see the interesting work of other German and inter-

national researchers in this subject area.

Mannheim: Taxing Multinational Firms

The Centre for European Economic Research ZEW at

the University of Mannheim jointly with the Centre

for Business Taxation at Sad Business School in

Oxford organized, for the first time this year, a Con-ference on Taxing Multinational Firms. The confer-

ence took place at the premises of the ZEW directly in the center of Mannheim. The

meeting brought together lead-ing tax researchers from Eu-

rope, the United States and

other places around the world.

Robert Ullmann presented the paper Are Location Decisions Influenced by Tax Havens Status? An Analysis on Tax Haven Existence and Clo-

sure (coauthored by Martin Thomsen und Chris-toph Watrin). The paper was discussed by Alfons

Weichenrieder who provided very good suggestions

on how to advance the paper. An interested audi-ence also provided helpful comments.

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EAA Annual Meeting (Paris)

The 2013 annual conference of the Eu-

ropean Accounting Association EAA was held from May 6 to 8 in Paris,

France within the premises of the Paris-

Dauphine University. More than 600 academic pa-pers were presented and discussed in various topi-

cal research sessions on financial accounting, cor-porate governance, and business taxation. Gerrit

Lietz presented the working paper entitled Does Corporate Tax Avoidance Impair Earnings Informa-

tiveness? (co-authored by Adrian Kubata and Christoph Watrin), Martin Thomsen discussed work

on The Impact of Taxes on Location Deci-

2013 Research Conference Presentations

Authors Working Paper Title Occasion (Presenter)

A. Kubata, G. Lietz, and C. Watrin

Does Corporate Tax Avoidance Impair Earnings Informativeness?

European Accounting Association, Paris (G. Lietz) 3rd Workshop on Current Research in Taxation (G. Lietz) American Accounting Association, Anaheim (G. Lietz)

A. Kubata, T. Wagener, and C. Watrin

Cash Tax Deferral and its Relation to Permanent Tax Avoidance

European Accounting Association, Paris (T. Wagener) American Accounting Association, Anaheim (T. Wagener)

A. Kubata and C. Watrin

Do Firms Manage Tax Positions Toward Desired Levels?

European Accounting Association, Paris (A. Kubata)

M. Thomsen, R. Ullmann, and C. Watrin

Do Firms React to the Existence and Closing of Tax Havens with Location Decisions?

Taxing Multinational Firms, Mannheim (R. Ullmann)

The Impact of Taxes on Location Decisions European Accounting Association, Paris (M. Thomsen) American Accounting Association, Anaheim (R. Ullmann) 3rd Workshop on Current Research in Taxation (M. Thomsen) Illinois Symposium on Tax Research, Chicago (M. Thomsen)

R. Ullmann and C. Watrin

A New Method to Discover Earnings Management that Aims at Meeting (or Beating) Earnings Targets

German Academic Association for Business Research/International Association for Accounting Education & Re-search, Annual Conference, Frankfurt (R. Ullmann)

U. v. Manowski Worldwide Tax System vs. Territorial Tax SystemLearnings from United Kingdom

European Accounting Association, Paris (U. v. Manowski)

T. Wagener and C. Watrin

The Relevance of Complex Group Structures for Income Shifting and Investors Valuation of Tax Avoidance

National Taxation Association, Tampa (T. Wagener) Taxing Multinational Firms, Mannheim (C. Watrin)

Conference Participation <

sions (with Robert Ullmann and Christoph Watrin), and Tim Wagener received valuable feedback on a joint project labelled Cash Tax Deferral and its Re-lation to Permanent Tax Avoidance (with Adrian Kubata and Christoph Watrin).

AAA Annual Meeting (Anaheim)

Between August 3 and 7, this years annual meeting of the American Accounting Association AAA

brought together over a thousand conference partic-ipants from around the globe in Anaheim to ex-

change ideas on issues in teaching and learning in

accounting. Under the common theme Brilliantly Disguised Opportunities, academics presented and discussed their research in progress on many

interesting aspects in accounting. Robert Ullmann presented the paper The Impact of Taxes on Loca-tion Decisions, Tim Wagener his project Cash Tax Deferral and its Relation to Permanent Tax Avoid-

ance, and Gerrit Lietz presented Does Corporate Tax Avoidance Impair Earnings Informativeness?.

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> Mnster Accounting Workshop Presentations

Anna Gold, associate professor at the school of economics and business administration

from the VU University Amsterdam (The Netherlands), held a workshop presentation in Feb-ruary to discuss a paper on Error Management in Audit Firms: Error Climate, Type and Origi-

nator (with Ulfert Gronewold and Steven E. Salterio). The study empirically investigates how audit staff who discover and report errors in audit files are routinely treated in response to

reporting such errors. Results suggest office error-management climate (from relatively blame-oriented to more open) can significantly affect error reporting and audit quality; further depend-ing on contextual factors such as the error type (mechanical vs. conceptual) and originator (own vs. peer).

Throughout the academic year, it has been a great pleasure for faculty and Ph.D. stu-dents to welcome excellent researchers in Mnster, to discuss their diverse and interest-ing work, and to benefit from their long- and outstanding experience in the field!

Wim van der Stede, CIMA professor of accounting and financial management and head of the

department of accounting at the London School of Economics (UK), kindly followed an invita-tion to Mnster this March to present a paper titled Strategy and Control: Findings from a Set-

Theoretical Analysis of High-Performance Manufacturing Firms (with David H. Erken). The study introduces fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) as a set-theoretic meth-

od to overcome limitations inherent in other empirical methods often used to investigate management control systems (MCSs). The authors demonstrate the general usefulness of

fsQCA to examine complex relations between MCSs and organizational variables, and provide evidence on

how MCSs combine with such variables, e.g. strategy, to result in high performance.

Daniel W. Collins, professor and director of the PhD program in accounting of the Henry B.

Tippie College of Business at the University of Iowa (USA), visited our institute in July to pre-sent a current working paper on Financial Statement Comparability and the Efficiency of Ac-

quisition Decisions. The empirical study, co-authored by Ciao-Wei Chen, Todd Kravet, and

Richard D. Mergenthaler, investigates whether acquiring firms make better acquisition deci-

sions when target firms financial statements exhibit greater comparability with industry peer firms. Results show that acquirers three-day returns and acquisition synergies are greater, and that post-acquisition operating performance is better when targets financial statements are more comparable.

Ute Schmiel, professor and chair of the institute of corporate taxation at the University Duis-

burg Essen, attended the accounting workshop in December to discuss the potential of a Unifying Research Approach toward Business Taxation. Embarking on the observation that

there are alternative research methods (e.g. empirical or hermeneutic), different perceptions of the market (e.g. with respect to stochastic uncertainty), and various assumptions underly-

ing a plurality of taxation-related hypotheses, the presenter suggests that a traditional neo-classic approach is only partly able to accommodate todays research questions and set-tings. In turn, an evolutionary approach to research, which better accommodates the different methods, market perceptions, and underlying assumptions, should foster more consistent contemporary tax research.

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Corporate Tax Avoidance - Conceptual Framework, Determinants and Consequences, and Novel Evidence

With his cumulative dissertation, Gerrit Lietz presents a comprehensive assessment of corporate tax avoid-

ance research. His four individual studies foster an

advanced conceptual understanding, evaluate prior

findings on the determinants and consequences of tax avoidance, and use empirical methods to provide nov-

el evidence on the role of international tax information exchange and on the association between tax avoid-

ance and earnings informativeness.

The first study (Tax Avoidance vs. Tax Aggressive-ness: A Unifying Conceptual Framework) proposes a novel unifying conceptual framework of corporate tax

planning. Based on the seminal no-tion of global effective tax planning

(Scholes and Wolfson), the frame-work accommodates the constructs

of tax avoidance, tax aggressive-ness, tax evasion, and tax shelter-

ing. As a useful reference point to delineate non-aggressive from aggressive tax avoidance, the frame-

work suggests the more-likely-than-not (MLTN) proba-bility of a tax transaction being legally sustainable

upon potential audit. This benchmark is discussed in detail, also in the light of alternative approaches that

can be identified in the literature. Subsequently, the study provides a thorough discussion of commonly

applied and recently proposed empirical measures of explicit tax planning. Definitions are tabulated and

each proxys strengths and weaknesses evaluated. Lastly, to provide methodological guidance, major

measures are allocated to the tax constructs they most adequately reflect. In sum, a sound conceptual foun-

dation should be helpful in promoting consistent fu-

ture research and allow for target-oriented inferences.

The second study (Determinants and Consequences of Corporate Tax Avoidance) reviews the large body of empirical literature on the determinants and conse-quences of corporate tax avoidance. Seminal contribu-

tions, as well as earlier-stage findings and emerging trends are identified and discussed. The survey study

follows a topical structure reflecting the various, often interdisciplinary, scopes of tax avoidance research.

Overall, despite rapid progress of the literature, the determinants and consequences of corporate tax

avoidance are still not well understood. Consequently, an encompassing goal of this study is to reveal oppor-

tunities for fruitful future research based on (but not limited to) recent developments in the empirical ar-

chival tax avoidance literature.

The third study (Do Tax Information Exchange Agree-ments Affect the Extent and Riskiness of Multinational Firms Tax Avoidance), provides empirical evidence on a so far unexplored determinant of tax avoidance. The study exploits data on the conclusion of OECD-

promoted tax information exchange agreements (TIEAs), which are intended to improve the flow of tax-

ation-relevant information between jurisdictions, in particular with tax haven countries. Results are con-sistent with increased cooperation efforts between tax

authorities restricting multinational firms tax avoid-ance. Analyses further yield weak evidence for TIEA

enforcement leading firms to engage in less risky tax avoidance.

The fourth study (Does Corporate Tax Avoidance Im-pair Earnings Informativeness?) is motivated in the context of prior literature, which generally provides mixed evidence on the potential capital market conse-

Dr. Gerrit Lietz, born 1984 in Hamburg, studied Business and Economics with majors in Accounting, Taxation, and International Management at the University of Mnster. After graduating in 2009 he began as a rese-arch assistant at the Insitute of Accounting and Taxation. He visited the Henry B. Tippie College of Business (University of Iowa) as a Ph.D. Stu-dent in 2012.

Completed Dissertations <

20 November 2013

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Tax Avoidance and Complex Group Structures

The cumulative thesis of Tim Wagener uses empirical methods to examine different research questions from

the field of corporate tax avoidance and includes four studies.

The first study (Cash Tax Deferral and its Relation to Permanent Tax Avoidance) contributes to a general framework of corporate tax avoidance research by dif-ferentiating between permanent and temporary tax

planning. It analyzes the differential firm characteris-

tics that both types are associated with and investi-

gates how permanent tax planning is related to tempo-rary tax planning. Using a sample of U.S. firm-year ob-

servations, the study documents a negative relation-ship between both types of tax planning. This finding

is supported in two alternative approaches to measure tax deferral. Overall, the study suggests that firms

trade off the costs against the benefits of the two types relative to each other, in addition to cost-benefit

considerations that are made separately for each type.

Contributing to the current debate on multinational firms extensive income shifting to low-tax jurisdic-tions, the second study (Do Multinational Firms Use Complex Group Structures to Facilitate Income Shifting

and Repatriation?) investigates whether European multinational firms make use of complex group struc-

tures to exploit international tax rate differences. Prior literature has shown that multinational firms increase

the extent of income shifting in response to tax incen-

tives to shift income. However, little is known about the process of income shifting itself. By developing a

new index measure of a groups legal complexity cov-ering the dimensions number of subsidiaries, owner-

ship chain length, cross-country ownership links, and use of holdings, the study examines

the role of group complexity in the income shifting process. Using a

sample of European multinational firms, the study finds that group

complexity is significantly and posi-tively associated with different proxies for tax incen-tives within the corporate group.

The third study (Investor Valuation of Tax Avoidance in Complex Firms) builds on this evidence and exam-ines the consequences of the use of complex group structures. Specifically, it investigates whether group

complexity influences the value premium that inves-tors place on corporate tax avoidance. Prior literature

has shown that investors generally value tax avoid-ance positively in well-governed firms. The agency

Dr. Tim Wagener, born 1984 in Moers, graduated from the Mnster Schoolf of Business and Economics in 2009 with majors in Finance, Ac-counting, and Taxation. He spent an exchange semester in France in 2008/09 at the Ecole Suprieure de Commerce de Montpellier and was a Visiting Ph.D. Student at the Foster School of Business (University of Washington) in 2011.

quences of corporate tax avoidance. This study is the first to empirically investigate the association between

tax avoidance and earnings informativeness, a well-

studied earnings quality dimension within the empiri-

cal accounting and capital markets literature.

It is here assumed that sophisticated tax avoidance in

large corporate groups may entail considerable com-plexities, eventually affecting reported earnings abil-ity to provide decision-useful information to investors. Conducting cross-sectional tests on U.S. corporate

data between 1993 and 2012, the study predicts and finds a negative association between tax avoidance

and earnings informativeness, as measured by the Earnings Response Coefficient (ERC).

> Completed Dissertations

10 July 2013

11

The Influence of Group Structures on

Accounting Decisions

view of corporate tax avoidance, however, suggests that tax planning involving the use of complex struc-

tures may lead to agency costs. The study provides a

direct test of the existence of such agency costs by

examining whether investors value tax avoidance dif-ferently when it is accompanied by complex group

structures. Consistent with the agency view, the study finds that complexity, measured by the complexity

index developed in the second study, negatively influ-ences the relationship between tax

avoidance and firm value for a sam-ple of European multinational firms.

The fourth study (GAAP ETR Man-agement to Beat Relevant Thresh-

olds) investigates whether firms use discretion over accounting earnings to manage a

ratio that serves to evaluate the quality of a firms tax planning: the effective tax rate (GAAP ETR). Specifical-

ly, it investigates whether firms actively manage their GAAP ETR to fall below important reference points. The

study argues that these GAAP ETR reference points may represent desirable outcomes for the firm, in ad-

dition to earnings targets which are likely of first-order importance. Employing a frequency distribution ap-

proach, the study finds evidence consistent with US-based firms managing their GAAP ETR toward round

values, without necessarily beating them. The study also shows that firms are most likely to use discretion

over the deferred tax expense to achieve their GAAP ETR target values. Further, the findings indicate that

GAAP ETR management is less prevalent in a period after the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley-Act, which

increased the costs of making arbitrary adjustments to the tax expense.

tries with high book-tax conformity) are associated with more downward earnings management. In two

further studies she evaluates to what extent the taxa-

tion and accounting of subsidiaries influence taxation

and accounting at the group level.

The first study (Book-Tax Conformity and Earnings Management: Insights from European One- and Two-Book Systems) investigates whether book-tax con-formity influences earnings management. Empirical

results suggest that firms in a one-book system (i.e.,

firms facing high book-tax conformity) exhibit relative-ly more earnings management. In particular, these

firms show more downward earnings management compared to firms facing lower book-tax conformity

(two-book system). Therefore, firms facing a tradeoff between reporting high earnings for capital markets and reporting low earnings for tax savings seem to

consider tax incentives more compared to firms which do not face this tradeoff. While using European data,

this study is able to draw conclusions for the question whether the U.S. should change from a two-book to a

one-book system.

The second study (Multinationale Unternehmen und Besteuerung - Aktueller Stand der betriebswirtschaftli-chen Forschung) is published in Steuer und Wirt-

In her cumulative dissertation, Nadine Ebert analyzes the effect of group structures on accounting decisions

of multinational firms. With her four papers she evalu-ates prior research and detects new areas for further

studies. Additionally, she provides empirical evidence that firms under a one-book system (i.e., firms in coun-

Completed Dissertations <

Dr. Nadine Ebert, born 1984 in Koblenz, majored in Finance and Taxation at the Mnster School of Business and Economics and graduated in the summer of 2009. She studied abroad at the Manchester Business School (UK) between 2006 and 2007 . In October 2013 she picked up work as a tax consultant for PwC in Osnabrck.

24 April 2013

12

Excerpt of Institutes Working Papers available on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN.com)

Authors Working Paper Title

A. Kubata, G. Lietz, and C. Watrin

Does Corporate Tax Avoidance Impair Earnings In-formativeness?

G. Lietz Determinants and Consequences of Corporate Tax Avoidance

G. Lietz Tax Avoidance vs. Tax Aggressiveness: A Unifying Conceptual Framework

T. Wagener and C. Watrin

GAAP ETR Management to Beat Relevant Thresh-olds

C. Watrin, N. Ebert, and M. Thomsen

One-Book Versus Two-Book System: Learnings from Europe

schaft (StuW 4/2013, p. 298-318) and reviews the literature on multinational firms and their taxation.

While in some areas of study, researchers agree on a

certain result, in other areas of research the results

even seem to be contradicting. One example for a con-troversial topic is the question whether national or

multinational firms pay more taxes. Although there is already a large body of literature on multinationals and

their taxation, this study underlines that there is much more literature to be expected within the next years.

The third study (The Impact of Single Entity Reporting on Group-Level Earnings Management) provides em-pirical evidence on how the accounting behavior of subsidiaries influences accounting decisions at the

group level. On the one hand, certain accounting rules are specified by the parent company. On the other

hand, the accounting culture of subsidiaries in other countries than that of the parent company could still

influence the exercise of options. The study shows that groups in which the majority of the subsidiaries re-

ports according to IFRS exhibit more earnings manage-ment compared to groups with a mixed structure re-

garding the accounting standard at the subsidiary lev-

el.

The fourth study (How do Multinationals Use Subsidi-aries for Tax Avoidance? Evidence from Europe) asks if firms reduce their taxes by taking advantage of inter-national tax rate differences. This question has not

been answered consistently in the previous literature. Using firm-level data to examine the difference be-

tween the effective tax rates of parent companies and their subsidiaries, the study shows that tax avoidance

by corporate groups is influenced not only by the stat-utory tax rate difference between parents and subsidi-

aries but also by other factors that constitute the tax system as a whole. This finding suggests that the in-

consistency in the previous results arises partially from the fact that these studies only investigate the

differences in statutory tax rates, not effective tax rates.

> Completed Dissertations

13

Professor Elisabetta Mafrolla, Professor Greg Jenkins, and Simona Jirskov

In 2013 we welcomed Professor Elisabetta Mafrolla from lUniversit di Foggia, Italy, who joined our team to experience a scholarly term in Germany. Professor Mafrolla provided unique insights, also by presenting her current work in progress during brown bag seminars and many informal meetings with colleagues. Her cur-rent focus is on understanding the characteristics of tax planning in family-owned firms. She also presented interesting empirical findings on the occasion of the 3 rd EIASM Workshop on Current Research in Taxation in July.

Greg Jenkins, Professor of Accounting and Information Systems and the William S. Gay Faculty Fellow at Virignia Tech, visited our Institute in Summer. It has been a pleasure to have him and to exchange on current research projects.

Simona Jirskov from the VE University Prague, Czechia, came to us as a visiting PhD student in 2013. She integrated neatly into our program and surely got a lot out of her visit to our Business School. Faculty and PhD stu-dents all thought Simona greatly added to their experience and much enjoyed having her visit our department.

We wish all our guests just the best for the future and hope to see them in Mnster again, soon!

Completed Dissertations <

Visiting Scholars <

14

Rose/Watrin Textbooks on Taxation: New Editions Released

In 2013, two of the five volumes of the Rose/Watrin taxation textbook series

Betrieb & Steuern have been released in revised and extended editions.

The long-standing comprehensive book

series, originally authored by Professor Gerd Rose () in 1969 and later continued by Professor Christoph Watrin, covers all major areas of personal and corporate tax-ation.

Volume 1 Ertragsteuern (income taxes) is now available in its 20th edition; Volume 2 Umsatzsteuer (value added tax) in its 18th edition. The textbooks are published by Erich Schmidt Publishing, Berlin.

Updated IFRS Commentary

A number of chapters in Volume 1 IFRS of the two-volume accounting

law commentary, edited by Professor Christoph Watrin

together with Professor Joachim Hennrichs and

Professor Detlef Kleindiek,

have been revised.

Various experienced authors and practitioners

provide an updated commentation that takes

into account a number of recent develop-ments as well as various annual improve-

ments. For instance, these changes concern the standards IFRS 1, (First-time Adoption),

IFRS 3 (Business Combinations), IFRS 4 (Insurance Contracts), IFRS 8 (Operating Seg-

ments), IAS 2 (Inventories), and IAS 39

(Financial Instruments: Recognition and

Measurement).

Practice Journal Contributions

Eberhardt, David: Abkommensrechtliche Missbrauchsver-meidung bei Investmentvermgen, IStR 2013, 377-386.

Watrin, Christoph/Eberhardt, David: Besteuerung von Streubesitzdividenden und internationale Steuerplanung, IStR 2013, 814-820.

Watrin, Christoph/Eberhardt, David: Ausschttungen im System der Hinzurechnungsbesteuerung nach der Neufas-sung von 8b Abs. 4 KStG, DStR 2013, 2601-2607.

Watrin, Christoph/Eberhardt, David: Steuerliche Gestal-tungsoptionen der Beendigung des unternehmerischen Engagements mittelstndischer Unternehmer, WiSt, forthcoming.

> Publications

Ebert, Nadine/Watrin, Christoph:

Multinationale Unternehmen und Besteuerung - Aktueller Stand der

betriebswirtschaftlichen Forschung,

StuW 4/2013, 298-318

15

Ph.D. Seminars <

Joint Doctoral Seminar in Dsseldorf

Every year, about 25 participants from the taxation chairs of the universities of Dsseldorf, Freiburg,

and Mnster gather for a Ph.D. tax seminar. From

June 13 to 14, the fifth DFM Seminar was hosted by Professor Guido Frster, holder of the Chair of Busi-

ness Taxation at the University of Dsseldorf.

The seminar, which was held in the brand-new

oeconomicum-building on campus, involved presentations on current research projects from the

field of tax and accounting, including both empirical and normative work. Representing the Institute,

David Eberhardt analyzed the current challenges to dividend taxation for corporations. Martin Thomsen

presented a research paper entitled Trade tax and its determinants. Lively discussions provided the authors with ideas on how the papers could be im-

proved. In the evening, the seminar participants met in the old town of Dsseldorf to enjoy an at-

mospheric dinner and some of the traditional bars of Dsseldorf. Next years DFM seminar will take place in Freiburg.

Summer Ph.D. Seminar on Empirical Research

In 2013 for the sixth consecutive time, the Institute invited two renowned U.S. professors to host the

three-day summer Ph.D. seminar on Empirical Re-

search in Accounting & Taxation, in which students have the opportunity to discuss seminal, published

accounting papers, but also to assess promising work from top institutions currently in progress.

Participants this year hugely benefited from Prof.

Scott Dyrengs and Doug Shackelfords varied selec-tion of seminar papers, their impressive expert

knowledge, and their personal lessons learned when it comes to the - sometimes tough - academic

publication progress.

Past Summer Ph.D. Seminars on Accounting & Taxation

Year Guest Lecturers

2008 Prof. Peter Frischmann Idaho State University Prof. Richard Startz University of Washington, Seattle

2009 Prof. Peter Frischmann Idaho State University

2010 Prof. Terry Shevlin Prof. Richard Startz University of Washington, Seattle

2011 Prof. Michelle Hanlon MIT Prof. Edward Maydew University of North Carolina

2012 Prof. Jennifer Blouin University of Pennsylvania Prof. John Robinson University of Texas at Austin

2013 Prof. Scott Dyreng Duke University Prof. Douglas Shackelford University of North Carolina

16

> PwC Tax Student Awards

The Insitute of Accounting and Taxation and PwC

honor students for their outstanding performance

In April and October, our traditional Semester Open-

ings took place within the premises of the Business School. As in prior years, we also formally invited

Bachelor- and Master students who performed ex-

ceptionally well in their tax courses final exams. In co-operation with PwC, the best ten students of

each tax class were honored with the PwC Outstanding Tax Student Award.

Thorsten Hunkenschrder,

partner at PwC Osnabrck, Dr.

Stefan Mense, senior tax man-

ager, as well as several young professionals joined the

Events to answer questions about possible internships,

career opportunities and the daily business at their Big 4-

accounting firm.

Altogether, more than 60 stu-

dents each Semester Opening

gathered to receive their awards, network with each

other, and get in touch with Professor Watrin and his Insti-

tutes team of doctoral stu-dents in a relaxed atmosphere.

We are already excited to welcome the next cohort of students to our next Semester Opening in April!

New Ph.D. Seminar on Empirical Tax Research

A newly created Seminar Empirical Tax Research has been successfully introduced to further en-hance our Business Schools structured Ph.D. pro-gram. The seminar in particular complements the Seminar Accounting Theory, launched in 2012.

The tax seminar is designed to introduce Ph.D. stu-dents (and interested Master students) to empirical tax research in accounting. In weekly meetings, stu-dents first win an overview of the vast area of empir-ical tax research and learn to understand the need for further research. Participants then explore basic research design issues that must be considered in the planning and conducting of empirical research. With this foundation, numerous empirical papers are analyzed and evaluated in detail.

Key elements of this seminar include developing

an appreciation for the role of theory in applied work,

an understanding of research designs commonly used in accounting and cor-porate finance research,

the necessary skills to design and con-duct empirical research, and

skills to identify a marketable project.

> New Ph.D. Seminar

17

Master Module International Taxation: Lecture and Tutorial

Module Advanced Taxation: Tax Accounting, Inheritance Tax, Tax Management Act Module Seminar on Accounting I/II: Major Seminars on Taxation Module Advanced Accounting on Specific Topics I: International Operations Simulation (INTOP)

Dr. Ansas Wittkowski, partner at LeMaitre Taxperience in Munich and Ph.D. alumnus of our Institute, is a specialist in the field of international taxation, advising multinational groups on cross-border and M&A-related tax topics. Dr. Wittkowski currently lectures the Master module International Taxation.

Steffen Gnutzmann and Robert Welzel, part-ners at WTS in Hamburg and Frankfurt, co-hosted the Master Seminar Accounting I. Participating students much welcomed the particular topical focus tax aspects in asset management.

Dr. Stefan Mense, senior manager with PwC Osnabrck, co-lectured this years Seminar Accounting II, which plays a central role in our Tax Masters curriculum. Based on his notable pro-fessional and academic experience, Dr. Mense covered a wide range of interesting aspects relating to corporate taxation.

Dr. Carsten Hink, executive director at AWB Mnster, has work-ed for many years in the field of value added tax services and has extensive experience in advising international clients on transfer tax related issues. Dr. Hink shared his knowledge by teaching the module Advanced Taxation: Transaction Tax.

Bachelor Module Financial Accounting and Taxation: Principles of Corporate Taxation Module Advanced Taxation: Transaction Tax Taxes on Income Module Finance and Accounting Seminar: International Operations Simulation (INTOP) Finance and Accounting Case Study Seminar Key Qualifications: Business and Intercultural Communication

Frank Nordhoff, tax manager at KPMG in Dortmund, was in charge of the lecture Taxes on Income, which forms part of the Bachelor module Advanced Taxation. Mr. Nordhoff kindly shared his knowledge on the various tax consequences that result from corporate splits, mergers, or changes in legal form.

Ph.D. Program

Ph.D. Seminar Accounting Theory Capital market-based empirical accounting research Ph.D. Seminar Empirical Tax Research Introduction to empirical tax research in accounting Ph.D. Summer Seminar Empirical Research in Accounting and Taxation Co-chaired by Prof. Scott Dyreng and Prof. Douglas Shackelford

Dr. Rainer Braun, judge at the Fiscal Court Cologne, dedicatedly held his lectures on general fiscal law and the Tax Management Act and in summer. Students favor Dr. Brauns long-standing course offering a lot, not least for its great practice-relevance with respect to a future career as a certified tax advisor.

Course Program in 2013 <

18

> VT Summer School

Summer School with Virginia Tech

For the third time in 2013, the Mnster Institute of Accounting and Taxation organized a Summer

School in cooperation with the Virginia Polytechnic

Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia

(Virginia Tech).

44 American students and their instructors

were kindly welcomed and hosted in Mnster

as part of their Study Abroad program Doing Business in Europe, organized by VT Profes-

sor Debra Salbador. In

exchange, a number of Mnster students was

sent to Virginia Tech for an academic term.

VT students in Mnster attended classes held

by Professor Jason

Malone from Virginia Tech and Professor Jay

Teets from Coastal Caro-lina University. Since

the accommodation with students from Mnster was well received the previous year, our American

guests once more had the opportunity to be accom-

modated with students from Mnster. This offered them the chance to better experience the German

culture and to make friends with their hosts.

The Summer School gives students from Mnster

the unique possibility of an intercultural exchange while attending the course Business and Intercul-tural Communication, held by Hugo van Bremen,

jointly with the American

visitors. The class was enriched by guest lec-

tures held by the entre-preneurs Uwe Rotermund

(noventum consulting) and Jens Rttgering (Hengst). In addition, a German

language course was offered to improve the stu-

dents language skills.

A business trip was

offered for the visiting students that offered

insights into German industries and produc-

tion processes with site visits at Mercedes Benz in Bremen and Meyer Werft

in Papenburg. Over the weekends, US students had

plenty of time to explore interesting destinations in Germany and acros Europe such as the cities of Ber-

lin, Amsterdam and Rome.

Moreover, students enjoyed Mnsters student life during summer, with a scavenger hunt, a pub crawl (both organized by the student representatives),

and a goodbye-event at a German brewery pub.

We are looking forward to welcome Virginia Tech

students for the fourth Summer School in 2014!

For more information visit http://www.international.pamplin.vt.edu/

studyabroad/dijon/

19

International Operations Simulation (INTOP)

INTOP once again enjoyed huge popularity among students. The Finance and Accounting Seminar elec-tive provides both Bachelor and Master students with an enhanced understanding of the problems of international business operations in general, and multinational enterprises in particular.

The complex computer-based simulation integrates a large number of diverse factors in the functional areas of marketing, production, investment and acquisition, finance, research and development, accounting, taxation and controlling.

Students are interactively confronted with the task of efficiently organizing their teamwork as to agree on business objectives and reasonable operational decisions.

Traditionally, the winter term seminar culminated in a one-week skiing seminar in Mallnitz, Austria, where student groups competed in several rounds of INTOP and also held their final presentations to explain their businesses evolution.

Combined with the welcoming atmosphere of the Eggerhof and easy-to-reach skiing resorts in the area, the trip provided an excellent blend of course-work, alpine sports, aprs ski, and leisure time!

For many years, this exceptional event is only realiz-able due to the generous support of Norbert Graetz and his great team at Deloitte & Touche, Dssel-dorf. We greatly appreciate the on-going sponsoring and look forward to meeting again in 2014!

INTOP Seminar <

20

JurGrad and CUR EMBA-Programs

In 2013, Professor Watrin, Dr. Kubata, Dr. Lietz, and

Dr. Ullmann taught several courses in a range of executive programs, including Financial Account-ing and Controlling, Mergers and Acquisitions,

Tax Accounting, Private Wealth Management and Business Law, offered by the JurGrad School of Tax and Business Law

and the Centre for Corporate Ac-counting, CUR.

Students enrolled in the JurGrad programs can either earn a

Master of Business Administra-tion (EMBA) or Master of Laws (LL.M.) from the University of Mnster, depending on their educational background.

Participants in CUR can either pur-sue an Executive MBA in Business Management or in Accounting and Controlling, respectively. All programs come in structured, content-related mod-ules and are complemented by various tutorials

held in smaller groups. All executive programs are accredited by the AACSB and other institutions.

> Postgraduate Programs

www.wiwi.uni-muenster.de/cur www.uni-muenster-llm.de

Research Center Business and Taxes

The Research Center Business and Taxes

(Forschungsstelle Unternehmen und Steuern), which

was recently co-founded by professors of the Mnster

School of Business and Economics and the Mnster

Law School, invited to its second and third meeting in

2013. The topics discussed were Operating Assets,

Inheritance and Accessions Tax (June) and

Economic and Legal Challenges to Regional Free

Trade Agreements (November).

The Research Center is dedicated to an interdiscipli-

nary approach to current issues in corporate tax law,

bringing together academics and interested parties

from economics, business administration, and law.

In February 2014, Professor Lars P. Feld will speak on

Fiscal Policy Challenges in times of the Euro-Crisis

(Herausforderungen an die Fiskalpolitik in Zeiten der

Euro-Krise).

Christoph Watrin, Jrg Baetge and Wolfgang Berens, founders and lecturing Profes-sors of the Centre for Corporate Accounting (CUR)

> Research Center

21

We appreciate the genorous support from our partners:

The Society for the Promotion of Accounting and Taxation (Frderkreis Rechnungslegung und Steuern e.V.) was founded in 2005 by Professor Watrin and his research assistants of the Institute of Accounting and Taxa-tion at the University of Mnster.

The Society is dedicated to the promotion of excellence in research and teaching in the fields of financial accounting and business taxation. It supports a sophisticated interaction between theoretical and practical work and fosters the exchange of aca-demic and professional practice experience. The society honors distinguished achievements in research and promotes the publication of promising contributions.

Graduate students of the business school are provided with opportunities to get in touch with practitioners to facilitate entry to their professional careers.

Society for the Promotion of Accounting and Taxation (Frderkreis Rechnungslegung und Steuern e.V.) Universittsstr. 14-16 48143 Mnster Tel.: +49 251 83 22880 Fax: +49 251 83 21824 E-Mail: foerderkreis@frs-muenster.de Web: http://www.frs-muenster.de

Sponsoring Partners <

Society for the Promotion of Accounting and Taxation <

22

Sportfreunde Steuern 65

Wiwi-CUP 2013

KPMGs International Case Competition 2013/2014

Team MIAT: Robert Wilke, Sven Schneider,

Lukas Schwind, and Oliver Wtjen INTOP - Champions 2013 2013 Doctoral Celebration - Deans speech

> Impressions

2013 Mnster Institute of Accounting and Taxation

From left to right: Martin Thomsen, Nikola Frieburg, Dr. Tim Wagener, Antje Messink, Sven Tietz, Fabian Riegler, David Eberhardt, Britta Heitmann, Dr. Gerrit Lietz, Dr. Adrian Kubata, Prof. Dr. Christoph Watrin.

www.iub-muenster.de

www.iub-muenster.de

Institute of Accounting and Taxation Prof. Dr. Christoph Watrin University of Mnster

Universittsstr. 14-16 48143 Mnster Tel.: +49 251 83 22880 Fax: +49 251 83 21824 iub@wiwi.uni-muenster.de