The new 137-country agreement to overhaul global taxation could step up pressure on some groups that had nothing to do with it—the panels that set corporate accounting rules.
The agreement uses a company’s income as measured under accounting rules, which is often different from its taxable income, as a key component of determining its tax bills. That could inject tax concerns into how accounting rules are set, some observers fear, and interfere with the goal of giving investors clear, unslanted information about companies’ finances.
In the worst-case scenario, they fear, politicians and governments will regularly pressure the private-sector bodies that ...