About

Dr. Michelle Harding is an Assistant Professor at the Pamplin College of Business, Virginia Tech, who joined the college in the fall of 2017 after completing her Ph.D. at the University of Tennessee. She holds a B.S. and M.S. in Accounting from the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia and is a licensed CPA in Florida. Her professional background includes working as a controller for a subsidiary of a Fortune 100 company in Nashville, TN. Her research interests focus on examining disclosure incentives in corporate tax and governance settings, with her dissertation analyzing the impact of increased private tax disclosure to the IRS on the quality of public tax disclosures. Dr. Harding teaches courses in corporate and individual taxation for undergraduates. She has been invited to present her research at various academic institutions and conferences, and her work has been published in notable journals such as the Journal of the American Taxation Association, Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory, and the Journal of Accounting and Public Policy. She is recognized as a first-generation college student and received the 2021 Pamplin College of Business Faculty Diversity Advocate Award, supported by fellowships from the AICPA, KPMG, and the Accounting and Financial Women’s Alliance.

Research topics

• Economics
• Sociology
• Computer Science
• Political Science
• Business
• Public economics
• Labour economics
• Industrial organization
• Marketing
• Microeconomics
• Knowledge management
• Monetary economics
• World Wide Web
• Demographic economics
• Finance
• Market economy
• Accounting

Selected publications

• Why do audit clients voluntarily disclose the compliance and planning components of auditor provided tax services?

  Journal of Accounting and Public Policy · 2023-12-16 · 4 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Tax systems and gender

  OECD eBooks · 2023 · 3 citations

  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Public economics

  This chapter considers the relationship between gender equity and tax and transfer systems. It first explores why it is important to consider gender equity in taxation: tax policy can be an effective tool contributing to gender fairness and governments’ efforts to reduce gender inequalities. Secondly, the chapter examines the direct and indirect impacts tax policy choices may have on gender outcomes, finding that even gender-neutral tax systems can have adverse impacts on gender through their interactions with broader inequalities in societies. The chapter also analyses the impacts labour incentives may have on gender outcomes, showing that the design of income taxes can influence the incentives for workers to enter the labour market as well as the nature of their participation. Finally, the chapter discusses the case for governments assessing the impacts of tax policy and administration on gender outcomes.

  PublisherDOI

• The Influence of Turnover among Other Top Executives on Financial Reporting Risk

  Auditing A Journal of Practice & Theory · 2023-09-25 · 4 citations

  article

  SUMMARY We explore the impact of turnover within top executive teams, with particular emphasis on executives other than the CEO and chief financial officer (CFO), on auditors’ perceptions of financial reporting risk. Consistent with upper echelon theory, we find that non-CEO/non-CFO executive team turnover increases perceptions of financial reporting risk even with continuity of the CEO and CFO. Additionally, we find that the effect of CEO and CFO turnover on perceptions of risk is primarily driven by concurrent turnover with other top executive team members. Further, the effect of other top executive turnover is more pronounced among firms that had higher-ability managers and that face greater constraints in replacing top talent. This effect is partially mitigated when the firm has an effective financial reporting environment and when the CEO who remains in place has greater operational involvement. These findings highlight the importance of other top executive turnover in risk assessments. Data Availability: Data are available from the public sources cited in the text. JEL Classifications: G30; M12; M41; M42.

  PublisherDOI

• Taxation of part-time work in the OECD

  OECD taxation working papers · 2022-03-12 · 15 citations

  paratext1st authorCorresponding

  The share of part-time employment in total employment has risen in most OECD countries over the past decades. While this is often associated with increased female labour force participation and the desire of many workers to achieve an improved work-life balance, there has been a significant decline in the average earnings of part-time workers relative to full-time workers, as well as an increase in involuntary part-time employment in a number of countries. This paper presents a summary of the taxation of part-time work in OECD countries. It includes new calculations of the effective tax rates on part-time work including those for male and female part-time workers and for different household types. These indicators provide an evidence base for policymakers looking to understand the impact of the tax system on the choice of employment form. The analysis shows that average tax rates for part-time workers are lower than those applied to full-time workers in almost all OECD countries, reducing post-tax gender wage gaps, although marginal tax rates are often higher for part-time workers. These differences between the taxation of part-time and full-time workers are largely due to differences in earnings levels, and therefore to the progressivity of countries’ tax systems, rather than to differences in the tax treatment applied to part-time workers relative to full-time workers.

  PublisherDOI

• Companies’ Initial Estimates of the One-Time Transition Tax Imposed by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act

  Journal of the American Taxation Association · 2022 · 11 citations

  • Business
  • Accounting
  • Monetary economics

  ABSTRACT We use the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act as a setting to offer new insights into companies’ tax accruals. We examine companies’ estimates of the mandatory one-time transition tax on previously untaxed foreign earnings. We exploit the one-year measurement period provided by Staff Accounting Bulletin (SAB) 118, during which companies could adjust their initial transition tax estimates to examine how companies’ information gathering and processing costs affect these estimates. We find more accurate initial estimates for companies (1) with political access, (2) with less busy financial statement auditors, and (3) who previously accrued estimated incremental U.S. tax on foreign earnings. Finally, we find that companies with incentives to manage external perceptions that they pay their “fair share” of tax are more likely to overstate their initial transition tax estimates. Our study provides evidence of cross-sectional differences in companies’ financial reporting of income taxes during a politically sensitive time.

  PublisherDOI

• The impact of E-commerce capabilities on online retailer performance: Examining the role of timing of adoption

  Information & Management · 2021 · 31 citations

  • Computer Science
  • Business
  • Marketing
  PublisherDOI

• Social security contributions (2000) as percentage of total taxation

  Revenue statistics in Asian and Pacific economies · 2020-08-05

  otherOpen access

  New Guinea, the Philippines, Samoa, Singapore, the Solomon Islands, Thailand, Tokelau and Vanuatu. It also provides information on non-tax revenues for Bhutan, the Cook Islands, Fiji, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Samoa, Thailand, Tokelau and Vanuatu. Four of these economies are OECD members (Australia, Korea, Japan and New Zealand). The approach used in Revenue Statistics in Asian and Pacific Economies is based on the well-established methodology of the OECD Revenue Statistics (OECD, 2020), which has become an essential reference source for OECD member countries. Comparisons are also made with the averages for OECD economies, Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries and 26 African countries.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• What drives consumption tax revenues?

  OECD taxation working papers · 2020-04-01 · 3 citations

  paratextOpen accessSenior author

  This paper decomposes consumption tax revenues in OECD countries into the implicit tax rate (ITR) and consumption relative to GDP, to identify how economic downturns affect consumption tax revenues. It further considers the impact of changes in VAT efficiency and VAT rates on ITRs. The analysis finds that the observed stability in consumption tax revenues results from offsetting changes in the ITRs and in consumption as a share of GDP, arising from both macroeconomic changes and intentional policy changes. During the economic crisis in 2007-2009, lasting changes in consumption patterns, notably increases in government spending and in private consumption of necessity goods, adversely affected the efficiency of VAT systems. These changes have not since been reversed, suggesting that consumption tax revenues are now less robust to economic shocks. Broadening the VAT base and narrowing the scope of reduced rates can help to stabilise consumption tax revenues during economic downturns.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Effect of Top Management Team Turnover and Local Market Characteristics on Financial Reporting Risk

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2020-01-01

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• The Magnitude and Accuracy of Companies’ Estimates of the Immediate Financial Statement Impact of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2019-01-01 · 6 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Junwei Xia

  Texas A&M University

  3 shared

• Luisa Dressler

  International Solvay Institutes

  2 shared

• Robert M. Fuller

  2 shared

• Johanna Arlinghaus

  2 shared

• Kenneth L. Bills

  Michigan State University

  2 shared

• Bridget Stomberg

  Indiana University

  2 shared

• Norman Gemmell

  Victoria University of Wellington

  2 shared

• Emmanuelle Modica

  2 shared

Labs

• Accounting and Information SystemsPI

Education

• PhD Business Administration, Accounting

  University of Tennessee

  2017

Awards & honors

• 2021 Pamplin College of Business Faculty Diversity Advocate…
• AICPA Doctoral Fellowship
• KPMG Doctoral Fellowship
• Accounting and Financial Women’s Alliance Doctoral Scholarsh…