Lillian Mills

Biography

Lillian F. Mills is Dean and holds the Lois and Richard Folger Leadership Chair and the Beverly H. and William P. O’Hara Endowed Chair in Business. She joined University of Texas at Austin in 2006 and served as Graduate Advisor for the accounting doctoral program during 2009-2010 and as Department Chair from 2010-2015. Her research interests in tax compliance, accounting for income taxes and effective tax rates, and international taxation arose through her professional experience, where she was a senior manager in taxation for Price Waterhouse.

She earned her B.S. and M.S. at the University of Florida and Ph.D. at the University of Michigan and worked at the University of Arizona from 1997-2005. She received the 2000 Arizona CPA Foundation Excellence in Teaching Award and the 2004 Eller College Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. In 2005 she and co-author George Plesko were awarded the American Accounting Association Deloitte Wildman Medal for “Bridging the reporting gap: a proposal for more informative reconciling of book and tax income,” National Tax Journal, December 2003. The Wildman Medal is awarded to the published paper that has made or is likely to make the most significant contribution to the advancement of the practice of accounting. Her paper, “Last chance earnings management: Using tax expense to achieve analysts’ forecasts,” co-authored with Dan Dhaliwal and Cristi Gleason, won the American Taxation Association 2007 Manuscript Award. Her paper, "The effect of mandatory financial statement disclosures on tax reporting and collections: the case of FIN 48 and multistate tax avoidance", co-authored with Sanjay Gupta and Erin Towery, won the JATA 2015 Outstanding Paper Award.

Professor Mills was a consultant to the IRS Large Business and International division for about 20 years. In 2003 and 2004 she served on an IRS/Treasury workgroup developing Form 1120 Schedule M-3. In 2005 and 2006 she was a Stanley Surrey Senior Research Fellow at the Office of Tax Analysis for the U.S. Department of Treasury. In 2007 she was appointed to the IRS’ Information Reporting Program Advisory Committee as a member of the Tax Gap Measurement subcommittee.

She served as the 2016 chair of the AAA/J. Michael Cook/Deloitte Doctoral Consortium, and the 2009-2010 president of the American Taxation Association. She has served on numerous other American Accounting Association, American Taxation Association, and National Tax Association committees, including the AAA Doctoral Consortium Committee, the AAA New Faculty Consortium Committee, and the selection committees for the AAA Notable Contribution Award and the Deloitte Wildman Award. She chaired the inaugural 2005 KPMG/ATA Tax Doctoral Consortium. Dr. Mills will be an Editor for The Accounting Review from 2017-2020 and previously served as an Editor for Contemporary Accounting Research from 2010-2013. She serves or has served on the editorial boards of The Accounting Review, Contemporary Accounting Research, National Tax Journal and Accounting Horizons and The Journal of the American Taxation Association. In 2014 she received the American Accounting Association EY/Ray Sommerfeld Outstanding Tax Educator Award, largely for her national leadership in tax doctoral education.

Lillian and her husband Jim Mills enjoy walking with with dog Reacher, golfing, and especially visiting their grown children and grandchildren in MI, NJ, NY and OH.

ACADEMIC LEADERSHIP & AWARDS

Professional Awards

• 2019 American Taxation Association Service Award
• 2007 American Taxation Association Manuscript Award
• 2005 Deloitte Wildman Medal

Teaching Awards

• 2014 American Taxation Association's EY Ray Sommerfeld Outstanding Tax Educator Award
• 2007 McCombs Faculty Honor Roll
• 2004 Eller College Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching