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What kinds of projects have you been involved in?

Well as I say, my research is primarily in tax. So together with co-authors, we’ve really been looking at the past, the present and indeed the future of the tax sector. In terms of the past, for example, we’ve looked at the development of the Irish 12.5% corporate tax rate. That was an oral history study, a method that’s quite rare in business research, and certainly in tax. Essentially, we invited key individuals (from Department of Finance, Revenue, and others) who were instrumental in getting that tax rate over the line, a rate that has been critical to Foreign Direct Investment in this country for more than two decades.

In terms of more contemporary issues, a major issue facing accounting firms at the moment is the ability to attract, and indeed retain, the best and the brightest. So, in other words, employee turnover or exit. It really is a major problem. Research has long shown that one way to stem that tide in terms of employee exit is through the promotion of strong employee voice. With that in mind, I conducted an in-depth study into employee voice of tax professionals working in Big 4 accounting firms: in terms of the issues that they face at work, the factors that might encourage them to speak up (or indeed to withhold), and how they go about it when they do decide to speak up about them. There’s been significant academic interest in the project – we’ve had 3 publications so far, all in high-ranking journals, and there’s more to come. So that’s very much the past and the present of the tax sector.

I’ve also been involved in research looking at the future of tax and accounting, particularly in the context of AI. I’ve also written a couple of industry-focussed pieces about the Trump tariffs and what this could mean for Ireland, especially within the context of our prominent film industry. And that’s certainly gotten attention.

Well, that study into voice in the Big 4 is almost complete, so the next step really is to look at voice in non-Big 4 settings. Big 4 firms, you know, in many ways they’re like multinational companies in terms of, say, their resources, their revenues, their global reach, employing hundreds of thousands of tax and accounting professionals worldwide. But these professionals can also be found working in small and mid-tier accounting firms, in industry, in the public sector, in academia – the kinds of workplace settings which may not have the resources that a Big 4 firm might have to dedicate to employee relations matters. I’m just rolling that study out at the moment but that’s going to be my focus for next while.

What is your core focus at the moment?

My research into voice has shown that tax professionals are keeping silent about a whole host of issues at work, including constructive ideas, things that could actually help their firms to operate more smoothly. What this means is that professional bodies, like the Irish Tax Institute, as well as higher education institutions like ourselves, need to take steps to emphasise to our students the importance of always speaking up, irrespective of your area of expertise, the potential repercussions, or the complexity of the matter at hand. In other words, voice? It starts right here, in the classroom.

1. McCarthy, B. (2025).
2. McCarthy, B. (2025)
3. Doyle, E., McCarthy, B., Tuck, P., and Barry, F. (2025). The evolution of the Irish 12.5 percent corporate tax rate: An oral history. Enterprise & Society, 26(4), 1385-1409.