Michele Mullaney and Andrew Belnap both presented research papers at the 2019 American Taxation Association’s (ATA) Mid-Year meeting, held this year in Washington DC. Michele and Andrew are both fourth year PhD students with research focused on corporate taxation.
Andrew presented his work coauthored with Brady Williams and Jake Thornock (a UNC graduate) on how foreign financial institutions responded to recent requirements implemented by FATCA, a law requiring information reporting from foreign banks to the IRS. Aside from having presented this research at the ATA meeting, the research also piqued the interest of the IRS itself, who requested to be briefed on the research this past fall.
Michele presented her work that compares the tax planning behavior of private firms to public firms. It is widely believed that private firms in the U.S. engage in more tax planning than public firms. Together with coauthors Ed Maydew, Patrick Langetieg, and Jeff Hoopes, Michele uses IRS data and finds that private firms actually do no more tax planning that public firms. Indeed, in many instances, her results indicate that public firms of similar size and industry do more tax planning than private firms.
Michele and Andrew are both fourth year PhD students with research focused on corporate taxation.