"It's a little surprising that so few financial executives plan to make any tax decisions based on who wins the election considering how much interest there's been in how each candidate plans to tax various kinds of income," said Mel Schwarz, a tax partner and legislative affairs director in Grant Thornton LLP's National Tax Office.

Tax policy has emerged as one of the top issues of the campaign, and President-elect Barack Obama, D.-Ill., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., had vastly different proposals for individuals and business. For individuals, Obama favors middle-class cuts and increases in capital gains and dividend tax rates, while Obama's business tax relief is more targeted than McCain's. (See Grant Thornton's full comparison of the presidential candidates' tax plans. )

Yet only a small minority of top financial executives plan to adjust their tax strategies depending on what happens in the election. A full 79 percent of CFOs and senior comptrollers surveyed by Grant Thornton said they did not plan on making any tax decisions based on the outcome of the presidential and congressional elections.