Allison Kays
Associate Professor in the Practice of Accounting | Emory University, Goizueta Business School
Atlanta, GA, UNITED STATES
Professor Kays’ loves to debate accounting, disclosure and tax policy
Links (3)
Biography
Allison Kays is an Assistant Professor in the Practice of Accounting. Professor Kays focuses her time and effort on being an excellent teacher. She has been recognized for her teaching excellence with the Emory Williams Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award and as a Poets and Quants Top 50 Undergraduate Business School Professor.
She loves to spend her time thinking about financial reporting disclosures and if they accurately represent corporate transactions. Recently, she developed a new accounting analytics course to expose finance and accounting students to the critical thinking and coding skills they need to better understand financial data and to make well informed data based decisions.
Professor Kays is also passionate about equity and inclusion at Goizueta. She is the co-chair of Goizueta's Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee and was recognized with the Goizueta Business School Faculty Diversity Champion Award in 2022.
She holds a BS and a MS in Accounting from the University of Florida, as well as a PhD in Accounting from the University of Southern California. Prior to earning her PhD, Professor Kays worked as a tax accountant for Ernst & Young in Atlanta.
Education (3)
University of Southern California: PhD, Business Administration (Accounting) 2018
University of Florida: Master of Accounting, Accounting 2011
University of Florida: Bachelor of Science (Accounting), Accounting 2011
Areas of Expertise (5)
Financial Reporting
Gaap
Tax Disclosures
Data Analytics
Voluntary Disclosures
Publications (1)
Voluntary Disclosure Responses to Mandated Disclosure: Evidence from Australian Corporate Tax Transparency
The Accounting Review2022 In order to deter aggressive tax planning, the Australian government mandated public disclosure of three line items from large corporations' tax returns. However, there is no evidence that the mandated disclosure led public firms to pay more taxes (Hoopes, Robinson, and Slemrod 2018). Instead, I find that firms strategically offset expected reputational costs by voluntarily issuing supplemental information. Specifically, when managers expect new reputational costs from the mandated tax return disclosure (wherein the disclosure reveals an unexpectedly low tax liability) and low proprietary costs from a supplemental voluntary disclosure (wherein the firm discloses its nonaggressive tax planning), firms are likely to voluntarily disclose information that both preempts and supplements the government's mandatory disclosure. Thus, when mandatory disclosures are incomplete, firms will voluntarily issue additional information to remain in control of their disclosure environments.
In the News (3)
What is Zero-Sum Thinking? Students, Faculty, and Staff Engage in Tough Conversations about Racism
Emory University Goizueta Business School online
2021-11-04
Lead organizer Allison Kays, assistant professor in the practice of accounting, said 100 Goizueta students, professors, and staff are in the small groups, and another 200 are reading the book on their own. Of the 300 readers, 32 are faculty, 61 are staff, and the rest are students.
Goizueta Faculty Recognized with Awards for Excellence, Dedication over Past Year
Emory University Goizueta Business School online
2021-06-04
Presented annually to faculty with a record of excellence in undergraduate teaching, this year’s award was presented to Allison Kays. The Emory Williams Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award recognizes faculty who foster participation, exemplify the highest quality of teaching scholarship, serve as a mentor to students, retain an ongoing commitment to teaching, and make significant contributions to advance the university through teaching.
“In Our Own Back Yard”: Goizueta’s “Read Watch Listen Experience Learn” Program Pushes the Important Conversations
Emory University Goizueta Business School
Kays, who is currently co-chair of the DEI committee along with her colleague Allison Gilmore, director of admissions and student services of Goizueta’s PhD Program, saw an opportunity for Goizueta’s “Read Watch Listen Experience Learn” program.
