Managing Financial Reports of Commercial Banks: The Influence of Taxes, Regulatory Capital, and Earnings

This paper investigates how banks alter the timing and magnitude of transactions and accruals to achieve primary capital, tax, and earnings goals. Recent research, including Moyer 1990, Scholes, Wilson, and Wolfson 1990, and Collins, Shackelford, and Wahlen 1995, provides evidence that banks execute transactions and manage accruals to achieve some or all of these objectives. A common feature of these studies is the assumption that when managers make a particular accrual or transaction decision, all other decisions are fixed. We relax this assumption and allow such decisions to be determined simultaneously.