Tax haven leaks have attracted negative public attention in recent years, prompting scrutiny of corporate behavior in leaked jurisdictions. We investigate whether U.S. companies with subsidiaries in implicated tax havens change their disclosure behavior after a leak. The Offshore Leaks, Panama Papers, Bahamas Leaks, and Paradise Papers are included in this study. We analyze the leaks as separate exogenous shocks to the affected firms’ behavior using a difference-in-differences approach. First, we focus on the readability of tax footnotes in annual reports. Our results suggest that tax footnotes are less readable after a firm’s tax haven is implicated in a leak. This finding suggests that implicated firms try to obfuscate information and hide unethical conduct. Second, we investigate firms’ disclosures of tax expenses using GAAP effective tax rates and find that companies report higher tax expenses after a leak. These changes in behavior could indicate that firms are concerned about the increasingly critical public attitude toward doing business in leaked low-tax jurisdictions and that they are taking measures to counteract possible negative reputational consequences.

JEL Classification: F23, G14, H26, M41

避税天堂的泄漏近年来引起了公众的负面关注，这促使人们在泄漏的辖区对公司行为进行了审查。我们调查了在涉嫌避税天堂拥有子公司的美国公司在泄漏后是否会改变其披露行为。这项研究包括离岸泄漏，巴拿马文件，巴哈马泄漏和天堂文件。我们使用差异差异方法将泄漏分析为对受影响公司行为的单独外部冲击。首先，我们关注年度报告中税收脚注的可读性。我们的结果表明，在公司的避税天堂被卷入泄漏事件之后，税务注脚的可读性较差。这一发现表明，牵连的公司试图混淆信息并隐藏不道德的行为。第二，我们使用GAAP有效税率调查了公司对税费的披露，发现公司在泄漏后报告了更高的税费。这些行为上的变化可能表明，企业对公众日益关注的公众态度在泄漏的低税管辖区开展业务表示担忧，并且他们正在采取措施来抵消可能的负面声誉后果。

JEL分类： F23，G14，H26，M41