Material misstatements in corporate tax disclosures have widespread economic and social impacts. Our study investigates how disciplinary power flows through communication channels between institutional investors and senior executives to normalise understandings of tax disclosures as an instrument of social control. Adopting a governmentality approach, we analyse interview data, in the UK and Australia, to query how power guides the willing subjectivity of senior executives to provide an account of tax performance that is aligned to institutional investor information expectations, given tax complexity. At this interface between financial reporting and tax regulation, disciplinary power, when combined with regulatory fear, routinize the production of simplified, plausible but sanitised stories. This provides institutional investors with what they need to know while avoiding the risk of attracting the attention of the tax regulator but limits the value of the information flow. Furthermore, mutually consensual, self-disciplining dramaturgical rituals between executives and institutional investors allow complex tax issues to be glossed over to focus on other more comfortable, productive areas of corporate performance. Power works in a subtle way to reproduce beliefs that complex tax details are less material and should be kept below the radar. This creates a tax knowledge gap with the potential for material ‘unknown unknowns’ to exist.

公司税务披露中的重大错报会产生广泛的经济和社会影响。我们的研究调查了纪律权力如何通过机构投资者和高级管理人员之间的沟通渠道流动，以规范对税收披露作为社会控制工具的理解。我们采用治理方法，分析英国和澳大利亚的访谈数据，以了解权力如何引导高级管理人员自愿提供与机构投资者信息预期一致的税收表现说明，考虑到税收的复杂性。在财务报告和税收监管之间的这个界面上，纪律处分权与监管恐惧相结合，使简化、合理但经过消毒的故事的制作成为惯例。这为机构投资者提供了他们需要知道的信息，同时避免了引起税务监管机构注意但限制信息流价值的风险。此外，高管和机构投资者之间相互同意、自律的戏剧仪式允许复杂的税务问题被掩盖，专注于公司业绩的其他更舒适、更有成效的领域。权力以一种微妙的方式运作，以再现复杂的税收细节不那么重要并且应该保持在雷达之下的信念。这造成了税务知识差距，可能存在重大的“未知的未知数”。高管和机构投资者之间自律的戏剧仪式允许复杂的税务问题被掩盖，专注于公司业绩的其他更舒适、更有成效的领域。权力以一种微妙的方式运作，以再现复杂的税收细节不那么重要并且应该保持在雷达之下的信念。这造成了税务知识差距，可能存在重大的“未知的未知数”。高管和机构投资者之间自律的戏剧仪式允许复杂的税务问题被掩盖，专注于公司业绩的其他更舒适、更有成效的领域。权力以一种微妙的方式运作，以再现复杂的税收细节不那么重要并且应该保持在雷达之下的信念。这造成了税务知识差距，可能存在重大的“未知的未知数”。