Bridging the Reporting Gap: A Proposal for More Informative Reconciling of Book and Tax Income

In this paper, we review the history and purpose of the corporation income tax return's Schedule M-1 in light of recent attention to corporate reporting issues. Although the traditional role for the schedule has been to assist the audit process, the reconciliation of book to tax accounting numbers also provides information useful to tax analysts. We find the existing tax return Schedule M-1, largely unchanged since its introduction in 1963, provides insufficient detail for complex reconciliation issues. We propose revisions to the M-1 to achieve better reconciliation, and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of public disclosure of such data.