Tax Accounting in Germany
Empirical Evidence on the Relationship between Financial and Tax Accounting and Options for Reform
Benedikt Zinn
Book-tax conformity is an old issue in Germany. For decades, the determination of taxable income is characterized by the authoritative principle governing the traditionally close relationship between financial and tax accounting. However, book-tax differences have been growing throughout the last decades. In particular, the German Accounting Law Modernization Act (BilMoG) is seen to set a new cornerstone in the development towards an increasing divergence between financial and tax accounting.
Despite the unanimous agreement of growing book-tax differences, little is so far known about the actual relationship between financial and tax accounting in Germany. In contrast to international research that has developed a variety of approaches to measure the reporting gap and investigated the information content of book-tax differences for corporate reporting behavior, empirical research on book-tax differences and their implications is rare in Germany.
Based on two unique data samples the author aims to close this gap in research and, for the first time, provide empirically valid estimates of the sources and magnitude of book-tax differences in Germany. In doing so, the author also calls the information content of tax-related disclosure requirements under German GAAP into question and develops reform options that do not only take the German perspective into account, but also consider the ongoing discussion on a Common (Consolidated) Corporate Tax Base for Europe.
