Summaries of Papers in This Issue.

Abstract The paper presents summaries pf articles related to taxation. The article "The Choice of Incentive Stock Options Vs NonQualified Options: A Marginal Tax Rate Perspective," shows that stock options allow executives to purchase their company's stock at a fixed exercise price for a fixed period. From a tax perspective, options are either qualified or nonqualified. Nonqualified stock options provide the firm with a tax deduction for the difference between the stock pt-ice and the exercise price on the exercise date. "Earnings Management in Response to Political Scrutiny of Effective Tax Rates," by W. Dana Northcut and Cynthia C. Vines, investigates whether political scrutiny of corporate effective tax rates influences accounting policy choices. In the years prior to the Tax Reform Act of 1986, the Citizens for Tax Justice used effective tax rates to argue that many large and profitable corporations paid little or no federal taxes for extended periods of time. Results from prior literature suggest that managers choose accounting policies in order to influence regulatory or legislative processes, and that taxes influence management's financial reporting policies.