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Explains how and why the household should, and could, be an object of analysis for a new social accounting. It shows that the household has been neglected in national income accounting, which generally tends to represent it as a black box. It also shows how the data from national income accounting can be reworked to demonstrate the importance of the household at macro and meso levels. The reworking shows that 84 per cent of GDP passes through the household just as, at the meso level, there are important differences between households in how they pool, spend and save income.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of institutional factors and the European Union (EU) accounting harmonization on the value‐relevance and comparability of dirty surplus accounting flows (DSFs) in the member countries throughout the period 1993 to 2002.

The returns‐earnings models and fixed‐effect operating income growth models are used to examine the differences in the incremental and relative relevance of DSFs between countries which have a piecemeal system of regulation with significant input from the profession and/or market participants, and the code law countries with the government being the most important institution with regard to accounting regulation. Moreover, the relevance of DSFs in the three sub‐periods is compared, each reflecting quite distinct attitudes in the EU towards international accounting harmonization.

DSFs are incrementally relevant in Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Sweden and the UK, where equity market plays an important role in the country's financing system; and in comparison to comprehensive income, reported income is a dominant measure of performance in most European countries, with the exception of the five afore‐mentioned countries. There is also evidence that cross country differences in the value‐relevance and predictability of DSFs decrease in the later years of this sample period.

Future research focusing upon the specific accounting changes made by companies in the EU is needed for a better understanding of the relative importance of stock market integration and standard setting changes in explaining the characteristics of DSFs.

The results indicate that the convergence in the reporting of DSFs over time is driven by global capital market integration, and more importantly, the accounting harmonization activities carried out via self‐regulation with significant input from the profession and/or market participants at national level.

The paper seeks to explore, firstly, the extent to which differences in the reporting of DSFs across the EU may be explained by institutional differences. Secondly, it explores whether or not differences across the countries have decreased in three phases of the EU harmonization process.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the causes that justify the application of presumptions in corporate income taxation. The authors focus on motives showing a connection to errors or fraud in the recognition of operations by the financial accounting system. The research question can be framed as follows: How to define the frontier between reliable accounting records and unreliable information, the latter rendering presumptions as an admissible way of taxing income?

The research design of this paper rests on two analytical steps based on the legal research method. The first step enquires, at the accounting level, how to define and quantify errors that render accounting statements inappropriate to assess firms’ performance and compute taxable income. The second step explores the practical application of presumptive tax concepts by Portuguese courts, to offer some criteria that can function as guidelines to firms and tax auditors.

The judgment about the boundaries of accounting errors that allow the use of presumption-based taxation is often decided by litigation. Portuguese jurisprudence provides strong evidence that presumptions should only be applied if, even by correcting of errors and inaccuracies, corporate real income cannot be obtained. The level of contamination must be obvious, and tax audits must present a strong and documented claim that presumptions are a last-resort mechanism to compute an appropriate tax base. The Supreme Tax Court has been applying a consistent approach characterized by: presumptive taxation is a last-resort mechanism; tax audits must prove that a generalized contamination of accounting data is observed; it is not possible to correct accounting errors, given their extension and depth, and the taxpayer did not submit contradictory solid evidence.

Applying, in practice, legal criteria to decide that accounting manipulation is so extensive that taxation must be based on presumptions is fraught with subjectivism. However, we offer an analysis where some guidelines to this complex issue are presented in a logical way. Principles-based taxation can, nonetheless, be applied with a significant degree of fairness and consistency.

The paper contributes to the literature by offering an analysis of the criteria used by Portuguese tax courts when deciding that accounting data can be disregarded and presumptions used as a tax computation tool. Given that the rule, in many countries, is to base taxable income on accounting records (albeit with adjustments established in Corporate Income Tax Codes), presumptions are a notable exception to this well-established rule. As such, taxpayers have a significant interest in knowing how courts rule on tax authorities’ use of presumptions. In this light, the paper has also potential value to professionals in the accounting and tax fields. They are often confronted with tax audits that apply presumptions. Therefore, knowing jurisprudential trends in the judgment of such, usually complex, cases is an important issue.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that determine the choice of multiple accounting methods in Tanzania. The study investigates managers' decisions to choose accounting methods in a positive accounting theory perspective using panel data covering 60 years from 15 companies listed on the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange.

Data were extracted from the companies' annual reports. Possible determinants of the choice of accounting methods are identified based on the positive accounting theory, including firm size, leverage, internal financing, proportion of non‐executive directors, ownership dilution, and labour force intensity. The study then utilises multiple regression analysis to determine the significant factors influencing the manager's choice of accounting methods.

The results show that the significant factors are company size, internal financing, proportion of non‐executive directors, and labour force. Contrary to the outcome of prior studies, the authors found that company size and internal financing are positively related with income strategy. The study proves statistically that there is a strong association between choice of accounting methods and income strategy.

The paper makes several contributions to the body of knowledge. First, in the Tanzanian context, it determines the factors which affect choice of accounting methods. Second, the study identifies the proportion of non‐executive directors as a new factor impinging on the choice of accounting policies. Finally, this study shows for the first time that the use of ratio of income‐increasing accounting policies to total number of accounting policies can be used as a dependent variable.

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the relation between tax reporting and financial reporting, their influence on transparency, and empirical implications.

Accounts manipulation has been the subject of research, discussion and even controversy in several countries including the USA, Canada, the U.K., Australia, Finland and France. The objective of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of the literature and propose a conceptual framework for accounts manipulation. This framework is based on the possibility of wealth transfer between the different stake‐holders, and in practice, the target of the manipulation appears generally to be the earnings per share and the debt/equity ratio. The paper also describes the different actors involved and their potential gains and losses. We review the literature on the various techniques of accounts manipulation: earnings management, income smoothing, big bath accounting, creative accounting, and window‐dressing. The various definitions of all these, the main motivations behind their application and the research methodologies used are all examined. This study reveals that all the above techniques have common elements, but there are also important differences between them.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss how a decision of restructuring and firing people in a Portuguese company was based on financial data, and how the interpretation of such data made the process quite complex. This complexity was particularly relevant in the litigation that followed. At the core of the restructuring decision was the evolution of the firm's operating income; and a central point in litigation was precisely what should be considered the operating income of the company under analysis, and how it could influence the case's court outcome.

In 2008 a Portuguese company fired people in its finance department. The main reason presented by the management to the laid off persons was the evolution of the firm's operating income, which was negative for several consecutive years. The paper, after a background analysis of restructuring decisions and financial performance, will focus on this case and the correspondent issues, that are mainly related to the concept of operating income, the style of communication between managers and affected employees, and court procedures. It will also compare the Portuguese accounting regime in 2008, with the present one, introduced in 2010 and based on IFRS, as far as the nature of operating income is concerned.

The main conclusion is that standards of accounting and financial reporting can have an important role in justifying restructurings and lay off decisions, and are quite complex to discuss in court cases related to labor laws. Also, changes in accounting systems can have a significant impact in measures of economic performance, opening a wide field of interpretation and legal uncertainty about case outcomes. Judges must have the capacity to navigate through such intricate questions, and see financial information numbers in the light of a company's true economic function.

The paper highlights the problems that can arise when financial data are the basis for layoffs. Given the nature of accounting conventions, if litigation follows, a significant degree of complexity can be brought to the legal process. Also, managers must state, in very clear terms, reasons for restructuring, and, when they stress financial performance, related indicators must have an objective nature.

The paper has value for managers engaged in restructuring processes and also for the legal professions, as far as the relation between layoffs and financial performance based on accounting data is concerned.

This study examines the use of linear regressions that include interaction terms, finding frequent interpretation errors in published accounting research. We provide insights on how to estimate, interpret, and present interactive regression models, and explain seldom-used but easily-implemented methods to report conditional marginal effects. We also examine the use of interaction terms in tax and financial reporting trade-off studies, evaluating the conceptual fit between a regression model with interactions and alternative definitions of trade-off. Although we advocate the use of interactive models, noise levels common in accounting research greatly reduce the ability to detect interaction effects.