The Relevance of Tax Information in Other Comprehensive Income

Given the general notion that more transparency, i.e. additional disclosure in financial accounting is beneficial per se on the one hand, and on the other hand given increasing scepticism about an information overload in financial statements, this study investigates the relevance of specific tax accounting information. For other comprehensive income (OCI), disclosure regarding deferred taxes on OCI items is required. We focus on whether the tax information given is relevant to the financial statement reader by using an experimental design, which allows us to manipulate the existence of tax information only, ceteris paribus. Participants, expert users and students make judgments regarding the financial performance, investment condition and tax position of the firm. The results do not support the notion that such deferred tax information in OCI is relevant. The (non-)existence of tax information made no difference in these judgments. This result is in contrast with perceptions of standard setters and should be borne in mind when considering further development of IAS 1 and IAS 12. Previous research on tax disclosure and on OCI disclosure does not cover deferred tax in OCI. Our results are novel and the method used allows for the isolation of the effects that we search for.