Joint Audit Engagements and Client Tax Avoidance: Evidence from the Italian Statutory Audit Regime

Posted: 3 May 2015 Last revised: 13 Apr 2021

See all articles by Pietro A. Bianchi

Pietro A. Bianchi

Florida International University

Diana Falsetta

University of Miami - Department of Accounting

Miguel Minutti-Meza

University of Miami - Department of Accounting

Eric H. Weisbrod

University of Kansas - School of Business

Date Written: May 15, 2018

Abstract

Under the Italian statutory audit regime, three individual accountants are jointly appointed to audit each client’s annual financial statements and sign off on the tax return. These individuals can belong to the same or different accounting firms and through multiple and repeated collaborations they form a professional network. We use network measures of centrality to capture individuals’ ability to acquire and apply tax expertise across clients. We demonstrate that clients engaging better-connected individual auditors have comparatively lower effective tax rates. Our results are robust to controlling for a number of client, individual, and accounting firm characteristics, as well as for alternative network connections between clients. We also use instrumental variables, individual fixed effects, and matching to mitigate the effect of endogenous pairing of clients and auditors. Our findings demonstrate that in a joint audit environment, individual auditor professional networks have consequences for tax outcomes. We extend the literature on joint audit regimes, collaboration between individual auditors from the same and different accounting firms, and determinants and consequences of individual auditors’ characteristics.

Keywords: tax avoidance, social network analysis, auditor networks, auditor tax expertise

Suggested Citation

Bianchi, Pietro A. and Falsetta, Diana and Minutti-Meza, Miguel and Weisbrod, Eric H., Joint Audit Engagements and Client Tax Avoidance: Evidence from the Italian Statutory Audit Regime (May 15, 2018). Journal of the American Taxation Association, Vol. 41, No. 1, 2019, DOI: 10.2308/atax-52151 , University of Miami Business School Research Paper No. 18-9, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2601570 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2601570

Pietro A. Bianchi

Florida International University ( email )

University Park
11200 SW 8th Street
Miami, FL 33199
United States

HOME PAGE: http://https://business.fiu.edu/faculty/expert-guides.cfm?FlagDirectory=Display&Emp=bianchip

Diana Falsetta

University of Miami - Department of Accounting ( email )

Coral Gables, FL 33146-6531
United States
305.284.8642 (Phone)
305.284.5737 (Fax)

Miguel Minutti-Meza

University of Miami - Department of Accounting ( email )

Coral Gables, FL 33146-6531
United States
305-284-6287 (Phone)

Eric H. Weisbrod (Contact Author)

University of Kansas - School of Business ( email )

1300 Sunnyside Avenue
Lawrence, KS 66045
United States

HOME PAGE: http://https://business.ku.edu/eric-weisbrod

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