Successfully producing relevant research requires investment throughout one's career to acquire fresh institutional knowledge, theories, and methods. In my case, almost a decade in public accounting launched multiple papers examining the tension between financial reporting and tax planning. Some of these papers directly generated new requirements for tax compliance (Schedule M-3) and indirectly influenced new financial reporting disclosures (FIN 48). As tax accounting researchers, we have the best competitive advantage in helping tax policymakers and tax authorities distinguish real effects from reporting effects. We can use that knowledge when analyzing the 2017 tax reform, especially with the help of the American Accounting Association (AAA) to build our professional networks.

We examine whether financial advisors with pre‐advisor criminal records pose a greater risk to investors than those without. We find that financial advisors with pre‐advisor criminal records are more likely to receive future customer complaints. Their complaints are more likely to receive arbitration awards or settlements and are more likely to involve large settlements exceeding $100,000. Finally, clients are more likely to suffer service disruptions from engaging advisors with pre‐advisor criminal records, even incremental to the brokerage firm being high‐risk. Although we do not have performance data of individual advisors, mutual funds of those firms that employ advisors with criminal records do not provide their clients with superior returns nor charge lower fees, suggesting that there are not compensating benefits to offset the investor harm. Overall, pre‐advisor criminal record serves as an important ex ante characteristic available to regulators, investors, and employers for risk‐assessment purposes.