Evidence suggests a large proportion of profitable U.S. firms have low effective tax rates (i.e., an ETR between 0 and 10%). Despite widespread interest in how firms avoid paying taxes, we do not know how most firms attain low ETRs and whether they are primarily benefiting from benign or aggressive tax positions. Using a research design that explicitly examines low ETR firms, we predict and find that the majority are primarily benefiting from a benign tax position: large net operating loss carryforwards (NOLs). We also find that large NOLs allow firms to persistently retain low ETRs year after year. In contrast, we find that multinationals and tax haven firms, which should have more opportunities for aggressive tax planning, have a lower probability of attaining a low ETR (relative to domestic and non-tax haven firms). Collectively, these findings suggest that the typical low ETR firm does not incur significant tax risk. Consistent with this, we find that low ETR firms accrue unrecognized tax benefits at a similar rate as firms that pay the statutory tax rate and do not experience higher future tax rate volatility. Overall, the results shed light on the profile of the average low ETR firm and provide evidence that the majority are utilizing large NOLs rather than aggressive tax planning.

Despite the rising use of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) ratings, there is substantial disagreement across rating agencies regarding what rating to give to individual firms. As what drives this disagreement is unclear, we examine whether a firm's ESG disclosure helps explain some of this disagreement. We predict and find that greater ESG disclosure actually leads to greater ESG rating disagreement. These findings hold using firm fixed effects and using a difference-in-differences design with mandatory ESG disclosure shocks. We also find that raters disagree more about ESG outcome metrics than input metrics (policies), and that disclosure appears to amplify disagreement more for outcomes. Last, we examine consequences of ESG disagreement and find that greater ESG disagreement is associated with higher return volatility, larger absolute price movements, and a lower likelihood of issuing external financing. Overall, our findings highlight that ESG disclosure generally exacerbates ESG rating disagreement rather than resolves it. Data Availability: The data used in this study are publicly available from the sources cited in the text.