Managing Annual Accounting Reports to Avoid State Taxes: An Analysis of Property-Casualty Insurers

42 Pages Posted: 1 May 1999

See all articles by Kathy R. Petroni

Kathy R. Petroni

Michigan State University - Eli Broad College of Business and Eli Broad Graduate School of Management

Douglas A. Shackelford

University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Multiple version iconThere are 3 versions of this paper

Date Written: March 1999

Abstract

We hypothesize that, in their annual accounting reports, insurers allocate premiums and losses from multistate policies to reduce total state taxes. To test this prediction, we examine firm-level data, collected from the publicly-available statutory reports used to compute tax bases and filed with each state government. If insurers manage allocations to avoid taxes, we anticipate an inverse relation between the tax rate and the premium-to-loss ratio, which is the industry's standard measure of the price of a unit of coverage. Firm-specific prices are computed using premium and loss information from the annual regulatory reports filed with each state in which an insurer underwrites. Primary analysis is conducted on 12,573 insurer-state observations from 1993. We find the premium-to-loss ratio is decreasing in state tax rates, consistent with multistate insurers managing their annual accounting reports to shift premiums (losses) to more (less) favorably taxed states.

JEL Classification: H25, M41, M46

Suggested Citation

Petroni, Kathy Ruby and Shackelford, Douglas A., Managing Annual Accounting Reports to Avoid State Taxes: An Analysis of Property-Casualty Insurers (March 1999). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=160497 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.160497

Kathy Ruby Petroni

Michigan State University - Eli Broad College of Business and Eli Broad Graduate School of Management ( email )

East Lansing, MI 48824-1121
United States
517-432-2924 (Phone)
517-432-1101 (Fax)

Douglas A. Shackelford (Contact Author)

University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School ( email )

Kenan-Flagler Business School
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3490
United States
919-962-3197 (Phone)
919-962-4727 (Fax)

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

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