A Comparison of U.S. and Offshore-Indian Tax Professionals’ Client Advocacy Attitudes Judgments, and Recommendations

Abstract:     
This study compares the client advocacy attitudes, judgments, and decision-making processes of U.S. tax professionals and Indian tax professionals who do U.S. tax work offshore. Our results suggest that client advocacy attitudes of U.S. tax professionals increase with experience while client advocacy attitudes of Indian tax professionals do not. Further, the results suggest that advocacy attitudes indirectly affect professionals’ recommendations to clients such that, as experience increases, U.S. tax professionals are more likely to recommend client-preferred positions than are Indian tax professionals. Given the increasing number of Indian tax professionals performing U.S. tax work, our findings should be of interest to researchers, taxing authorities, firms, and taxpayers.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 38

Keywords: Client advocacy, India, Offshoring, Tax, Confirmation bias

JEL Classification: M4, M40, M41, M55, H2, H20, C9, C90, C93

working papers series