Research on the determinants of tax avoidance have relied on tests using GAAP and cash effective tax rates (ETRs) and total and permanent book‐tax differences. Two new proxies have emerged that overcome documented limitations of these proxies: one, developed by Henry and Sansing (2018), allows for more meaningful interpretation of results estimated in samples that include loss observations. The other, reserves for unrecognized tax benefits (UTB), provides new data on tax uncertainty. We offer empirical evidence on how well tests using these new proxies perform relative to those extensively used in prior research. The paper finds that tests using the proxy developed by Henry and Sansing (2018) have lower power relative to those using other proxies across all samples, including a sample that includes loss observations. In contrast, when firms accrue reserves for uncertain tax avoidance, tests using the current‐year addition to the UTB have the highest power across all proxies, samples, and levels of reserves. In the absence of reserves, tests using the GAAP ETR best detect uncertain tax avoidance, on average. This study contributes to the literature by using a controlled environment to provide the first large‐scale empirical evidence on how the power of tests varies with the use of relatively new proxies, the inclusion of loss observations, and the advent of FIN 48.

Global tax enforcement policies have received increased attention since the financial crisis, with much stated focus on curbing perceived harmful tax practices of multinational corporations. Yet there is a dearth of evidence on possible differential effects of home‐country tax enforcement on multinationals. We take a step toward filling this void in the tax policy discussion by examining whether there is a differential relation between changes in home‐country enforcement and the tax avoidance of domestic versus multinational corporations. Using OECD data on 50 countries from 2005 to 2019, we find increases in home‐country enforcement are associated with lower levels of tax avoidance for domestic firms than for multinational corporations. Using a subset of firms from the Bureau van Dijk database, we find that multinationals avoid more tax in foreign countries when home‐country enforcement increases. Results are stronger for multinationals with a higher proportion of subsidiaries in low‐tax countries and when enforcement spending is low. These findings have implications for policy‐makers and highlight the importance of coordinated enforcement efforts across jurisdictions—such as the recently proposed global minimum tax—to successfully curb multinationals' worldwide tax avoidance.

As part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), the US Congress repealed a long‐standing exception that allowed companies to deduct executives' qualified performance‐based compensation in excess of $1 million. The purpose of this study is to examine whether Congress achieved its stated objective of reversing a shift in executive compensation away from cash compensation and toward performance pay, which Congress believed led executives to focus on short‐term results rather than the long‐term success of the company. Across a battery of tests, including a difference‐in‐differences design that exploits the staggered time‐series implementation of the deduction limit, we find evidence compatible with the new deduction limit having no effect on executives' salary, performance pay or total compensation, inconsistent with Congressional intent. Our results suggest that taxes are not a first‐order effect of executive pay and that tax regulation could be relatively ineffective at curbing executive compensation.