The Relation Between a Deferred Tax Valuation Allowance Release and Earnings Growth and External Monitoring

I investigate whether management’s decision to release or maintain the valuation allowance for deferred tax assets provides incremental information regarding pretax earnings growth in the following earnings period. I classify firm-years into two categories; valuation allowance release firm-years and valuation allowance maintain firm-years. The results of this study suggest that a release of the valuation allowance in the current period is positively associated with pretax earnings growth in the following period. This paper also studies whether a release of the valuation allowance yields increased external monitoring, and finds evidence that suggests an association