What Do We Know about Tax Treaties and How Can Accounting Research Contribute?

Abstract

Bilateral tax treaties are an integral part of the international tax system. Despite this, the accounting literature on tax treaties is almost non-existent, with the majority of the research being done in the public finance and tax law research fields. The goal of this paper is to spur an interest among accounting and tax researchers to engage with this literature. In this paper, we suggest that there are several areas in which accounting researchers are well positioned to contribute to the tax treaty literature. We survey the existing tax treaty literature in accounting, public finance, and tax law, and we identify new opportunities for accounting researchers. These opportunities span a broad range of research methods including archival, behavioral and experimental, interpretive, and tax legal research. Perhaps most importantly, we suggest that the contributions that accounting researchers can make to the tax treaty literature may have meaningful impacts not only on the academic world but also on tax policy making and practice.