About

Scott Rane is an Assistant Professor at the Warrington College of Business, University of Florida, affiliated with the Fisher School of Accounting. He holds a PhD in Accounting from Texas A&M University, an MS in Taxation from Arizona State University, and a BS in International Business Management from Brigham Young University – Hawaii. His scholarly work focuses on tax-related topics, including income shifting, tax motivation, and the consequences of income tax subsidies. Rane has published articles in reputable journals such as the National Tax Journal, Accounting Review, Contemporary Accounting Research, and the Journal of the American Taxation Association. His research explores issues related to tax-motivated income shifting, cost structures, equity incentives, and the impact of tax policies on industries like restaurants. He teaches courses including Federal Income Tax and State and Local Taxation, contributing to the academic and professional development of students in the field of accounting and taxation.

Research topics

• Economics
• Business
• Labour economics
• Public economics
• Monetary economics

Selected publications

• Foreign Tax Holiday Participation and <scp>US</scp> Job and Investment Loss

  Contemporary Accounting Research · 2026-02-06

  articleSenior author

  ABSTRACT We investigate whether foreign tax holiday participation among US multinational companies is associated with offshoring US jobs and other domestic investment activities. We find that foreign tax holiday participation is associated with (1) an increase in offshoring US jobs and (2) a decrease in domestic investment, as proxied by changes in the number of employees, capital expenditures, and R&amp;D activity. Furthermore, we find evidence suggesting that the association between targeted, temporary tax incentives provided by foreign tax holidays and firms' domestic activities is stronger among firms with a smaller foreign presence and is distinct from the impact of foreign statutory tax rate changes. Overall, the results of this study increase our understanding of the firm‐level consequences of foreign tax holiday participation, the influence of various tax incentive structures on the allocation of firm resources, and the potential consequences of international tax competition.

  PublisherDOI

• IRS Officials' Stock Holdings and Corporate Tax Outcomes

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• IRS Officials' Stock Holdings and Corporate Tax Outcomes

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• The Financial Reporting Consequences of Last Chance Earnings Management

  Journal of Business Finance &amp Accounting · 2025-01-16

  articleSenior authorCorresponding

  ABSTRACT Given its opacity and the timing of its closure, the tax expense represents a theoretically and intuitively plausible mechanism for managers to manipulate earnings to achieve performance benchmarks (i.e., last chance earnings management or LCEM). Although empirical analyses of effective tax rates are consistent with the existence of this behavior, its consequences are unclear. We investigate whether LCEM is associated with lower financial reporting quality. Contrary to our expectations, we fail to find evidence that LCEM is associated with tax‐related misstatements, tax‐related comment letters, or tax accrual quality with scaled confidence intervals reliably near zero. In cross‐sectional tests, we also fail to find a consistent association in subsamples where LCEM is more likely to represent impaired financial reporting quality. Collectively, our results should caution researchers using LCEM as a proxy for impaired financial reporting quality.

  PublisherDOI

• The Foreign Market Effect and Estimating Tax-Motivated Income Shifting

  National Tax Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Products, Services, and Tax-Motivated Income Shifting

  National Tax Journal · 2024-01-31 · 6 citations

  articleSenior author

  To better understand how the rise of global service-based activities affects multijurisdictional tax avoidance, we examine variation in tax-motivated income shifting among product- and service-based firms. We find that service-based firms are more responsive to income-shifting incentives, on average, than product-based firms and that the observed responsiveness among service-based firms is increasing over time. We also find that income shifting for product- and service-based firms varies differentially with intangible intensity, human-capital characteristics, and tax-haven usage. These results inform current policy debates regarding the effectiveness of various measures aimed at combating base erosion and income shifting.

  PublisherDOI

• Replication Data for: Products, Services, and Tax-Motivated Income Shifting

  Harvard Dataverse · 2023-09-20

  datasetOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Code and data to be used for replication of "Products, Services, and Tax-Motivated Income Shifting" published in the National Tax Journal.

  PublisherDOI

• Equity Incentives and Tax-Motivated Income Shifting

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  ABSTRACT We examine whether executives’ equity-based compensation incentives, tied to firm value (delta) and risk-taking (vega), are associated with the extent of firms’ tax-motivated income shifting. Managers of multinational firms face unique value and risk incentives. However, it is unclear whether these incentives are associated with income shifting, a strategic tax planning activity that reflects intentional managerial behavior along both operational and accounting dimensions. We find that delta is positively associated with income shifting, suggesting that executives behave as if income shifting is associated with value enhancing decisions. We fail to find an association between vega and income shifting, on average, but find a positive association when corporate governance is relatively weak. These findings suggest that executives behave as if the value enhancing benefits of income shifting dominate potential increases in risk. Our findings suggest that the relation between executive incentives and income shifting is distinct from overall tax avoidance. Data Availability: All data used in this study are publicly available. Wharton Research Data Services (WRDS) was used in preparing this manuscript. This service and the data available thereon constitute valuable intellectual property and trade secrets of WRDS and/or its third-party suppliers. JEL Classifications: G34; H25; H26; J33; M12; M41; M52.

  PublisherDOI

• Cost Structure and Tax-Motivated Income Shifting

  The Accounting Review · 2023-06-30 · 12 citations

  article

  ABSTRACT We examine whether cost structure influences tax-motivated income shifting. We predict and find that U.S. multinational corporations (MNCs) with a less rigid cost structure engage in greater levels of tax-motivated income shifting relative to MNCs with a more rigid cost structure. This result is consistent with a less rigid cost structure providing greater flexibility to enable MNCs to take advantage of income-shifting opportunities. Further, we find that this relation is more pronounced when firms face greater costs in adjusting their operations, have less transfer pricing flexibility, and operate in a more uncertain environment. These results suggest that firms with less rigid cost structures possess the strategic operating and accounting flexibility necessary to take advantage of income-shifting opportunities. We provide evidence suggesting that a firm’s cost structure, a fundamental attribute of a firm’s business model, is a distinct and incrementally important determinant of tax-motivated income shifting. Data Availability: All data used in this study are publicly available. JEL Classifications: G32; H26; M41.

  PublisherDOI

• The Financial Reporting Consequences of Last Chance Earnings Management

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Sean T. McGuire

  9 shared

• Michael Mayberry

  University of Florida

  9 shared

• Connie D. Weaver

  Texas A&M University

  7 shared

• Zero Deng

  Oregon State University

  2 shared

• Linda K. Krull

  2 shared

• Zackery D. Fox

  Brigham Young University

  2 shared

• Mehmet C. Kara

  University of Kansas

  1 shared

Labs

• Warrington College of Business - Fisher School of AccountingPI

Education

• PhD

  Texas A&M University