非处罚性监管与公司税收规避——基于财务报告问询函的证据

本文基于税收规避视角研究中国制度背景下问询函性质非处罚性监管的经济后果。实证结果发现:财务报告问询函可以抑制公司税收规避行为,且财务报告问询函总数越多、针对同一财务报告问询次数越多、财务报告问询函问题数量越多,意味着问询函监管强度越高,公司税收规避降低幅度越大。同时,从细分特征来看,当财务报告问询函涉及税收或研发相关内容时,公司税收规避程度更低。进一步地,在融资约束程度较低和税收征管强度较高的公司中,税收规避程度较低,问询函的监管效果较好。     

Tax avoidance in family firms: Evidence from large private firms

Ownership structure plays an important role in firms’ decisions on tax avoidance. Recently, the effect of family ownership on corporate tax avoidance has become an issue of increasing interest among scholars from both the fields of family business research and tax research; however, empirical findings have so far remained ambiguous. Based on a unique sample of 678 large private firms from Germany, we show that for unlisted large firms (i) family firms avoid more tax than non-family firms, (ii) tax avoidance increases with the percentage of family ownership, and (iii) tax avoidance is a function of the number of shareholders. We interpret our results as evidence that benefits from avoiding taxes outweigh the non-tax costs in the case of large private family firms in Germany. Furthermore, as the number of family shareholders increases, family firms satisfy increasing demand for dividends by avoiding taxes.     

Tax avoidance and ex ante cost of capital

This study examines the association between tax avoidance and ex ante cost of equity capital. Based on prior research, we develop two proxies for investors’ expectations of tax avoidance and explore whether deviations from those expectations result in higher ex ante cost of equity capital. We find that the ex ante cost of equity capital increases with tax avoidance that is either below or above investor expectations and that the increase is larger for tax avoidance that exceeds investors’ expectations. We then examine whether firms that alter their future tax avoidance exhibit a lowering of their ex ante cost of equity capital and find that tax avoidance decreases (increases) from the prior year for firms that were above (below) investors’ expectations in the prior year. These results are consistent with the trade‐off suggested by the Scholes and Wolfson framework and reinforce the notion that balancing tax benefits and non‐tax costs is an important feature of firms’ tax planning.     

同行业间避税与企业的战略反应——来自我国A股上市公司的经验证据

本文运用2007-2016年中国A股上市公司数据,引入同行业竞争者的股票异常回报作为工具变量,研究同行业竞争者避税行为对企业战略反应的影响。研究发现,相比国有企业,民营企业的同行业竞争者避税行为与企业避税存在战略互补效应,即同行业竞争者的避税行为越激进,企业会选择更加激进的避税策略。探究可能影响这种战略互补效应的机制,结果显示民营企业很可能会模仿同行业领导者等被认为避税行为更有效合理的竞争对手制定避税策略。进一步发现地理距离衰减有利于降低同行业信息收集成本,导致同行业间战略互补反应更显著,即同行业避税政策模仿具有“本土偏好”。本文提供了同行业竞争对企业避税影响的因果关系证据,揭示了同行业竞争者避税行为是企业避税行为的重要影响因素。     

Directors with foreign experience and corporate tax avoidance

Using a large sample of hand-collected directors' foreign experience data for Chinese listed companies from 2001 to 2016, we examine the impact of directors with foreign experience on corporate tax avoidance. We find a significantly negative association between directors with foreign experience and tax avoidance, suggesting that these directors can help constrain their firms' tax aggressiveness. The result is robust to Heckman two-stage analysis, instrumental variable approach, inclusion of potential omitted variables, change analysis, and alternative tax avoidance measures. Further analyses reveal that reputation concerns and CSR awareness are potential channels through which returnee directors affect corporate tax avoidance. The negative relation between directors with foreign experience and tax avoidance only holds when directors' foreign experiences are derived from countries or regions with higher investor protections. Non-independent directors with foreign experience have larger impacts on corporate tax avoidance than independent directors, and the effect is more pronounced when directors with foreign experience sit on audit committees. Directors' working and studying experiences both have important impacts on corporate tax avoidance. The result also suggests that the negative relation between directors with foreign experience and tax avoidance is more pronounced in non-state-owned firms. Overall, the findings suggest that directors' foreign experience matters for corporate tax behavior in emerging markets.     

Incentives for corporate tax planning and reporting: Empirical evidence from Australia

This study extends prior research on the willingness of firms to significantly decrease their corporate taxes. It specifically examines the associations between corporate tax avoidance and the reported significant uncertainty of a firm’s tax position, the tax expertise and tax affiliations of its directors, and the performance-based remuneration incentives of its key management personnel. Based on a dataset of 200 publicly listed Australian firms over the 2006–2010 period (1000 firm years), we find that the reported uncertainty of a firm’s tax position, the tax expertise of its directors, and the performance-based remuneration incentives of its key management personnel are significantly positively associated with tax avoidance. Conversely, firms with board members who have at least one tax-related affiliation are significantly negatively associated with tax avoidance.     

Saving or tunnelling: value effects of tax avoidance in Chinese listed local government-controlled firms

This paper investigates the value effect of tax avoidance and its underlying mechanisms among Chinese listed local government-controlled (LG) firms. We show that tax avoidance does not promote firm value in LG firms with government ownership smaller than 40 percent and the above negative tunnelling effect is more pronounced when the control rights are concentrated in the local government and weaker when other large shareholders can act as a countervailing force. Finally, we observe a positive relation between tax avoidance and related-party transactions as well as overinvestment, again indicating a tunnelling effect in LG firms with government ownership smaller than 40 percent.     

工薪所得税筹划与企业创新

本文结合我国工薪所得税税负较重及实施创新驱动发展战略的现实背景,探讨工薪所得税筹划是否以及如何对企业创新产生影响。研究发现:(1)工薪所得税筹划程度与企业创新显著正相关;(2)员工应税压力越大,二者正相关关系越显著,且2011年个人所得税税制改革会抑制二者之间的正向关系,表明纳税筹划主要通过降低工薪税负的不利影响,强化薪酬的激励效应,进而促进企业创新;(3)当公司为国有企业或公司处在税收征管强度较大的地区时,二者的正向关系更强;(4)当企业人均薪酬波动较大时,二者的正向关系削弱;(5)当创新员工更有可能是避税行为的受益者时,二者的正相关关系更强。本研究对于降低工薪阶层税负,以及如何提高企业创新意愿,实现创新驱动发展战略,具有重要的理论和现实意义。     

日本分享企业海外经济利益的经验简介

近年来,我国企业走出去步伐加快,如何分享企业的海外经济收益,逐渐成为一个重要的研究课题。本文通过对日本近年来强化税制改革、严厉打击避税、规范政策指引等措施的分析,提出如何分享企业海外经济利益的相应对策。     

The effect of corporate tax avoidance on salary distribution——Empirical evidence from publicly listed companies in China

Corporate tax avoidance is ubiquitous and has a wide range of economic implications. In this paper, we investigate the effect of corporate tax avoidance on the pay level for employees and the internal pay gap between executives and ordinary employees based on the perspective of salary distribution. The results show that corporate tax avoidance can significantly improve the average pay level of all the staff, but the “inclusive” benefit on employee remuneration brought by tax avoidance is not evenly distributed. More of the increased remunerations are allocated to the top management, further widening executives-ordinary employees pay gap. In addition, evidence from the cross-section analysis reveals that the current life cycle, the level of realized pay, and the short-term investment strategy in Chinese publicly listed companies can significantly affect the relationship between corporate tax avoidance and the internal pay gap. Further analysis suggests that the remuneration-increase effect of corporate tax avoidance can contribute to improving employees' efficiency, but the uneven distribution of tax-saving benefits interferes with such improvement to some extent. Overall, our results demonstrate that reasonable and effective corporate tax avoidance features a certain degree of “inclusiveness” since it helps raise the pay level of the whole staff, which sheds light on the necessity of persistent implementation of tax and fee reduction policies in China.     

商业战略选择、产权安排与企业避税行为

商业战略会通过影响一个公司对风险的态度进而影响公司的避税行为,从上述理论出发,文章研究了商业战略和避税行为之间的关系,发现与采用探索者战略的企业相比,采用防御者战略的企业避税行为更消极,也意味着防御者认为激进税收筹划带来的成本和不确定性超过了节税的收益。同时研究还发现,由于产权安排导致的避税激励差异,上述战略对于避税行为的影响主要存在于国有企业。     

公司税收规避、税率持续性与股票收益波动率

从税率平稳性角度看,避税活动是否会增加税率波动性进而给企业带来高风险是一个值得探讨的重要问题。从动态视角研究发现,避税是一种策略性行为,低实际税率的企业相比高实际税率的企业,其税率在长时期内能够保持平稳。此外,避税活动并不一定会带来未来税率和股票收益的波动性。这说明公司通常采用持续、稳定的税收策略,不会带来公司风险的激增。进一步研究发现：节税率的波动性与公司未来股票收益波动存在着显著正相关,即当避税引起税率波动较大时,会带来公司股票收益风险的增加。     

Stock liquidity and corporate tax avoidance

We show that firms with higher stock liquidity engage less in extreme (i.e., overly aggressive or overly conservative) tax avoidance. The effect of stock liquidity on tax avoidance is economically meaningful and robust across alternative measures of tax avoidance and stock liquidity. The findings also hold after controlling for potential endogenous effects. We further document that the effect of stock liquidity on tax avoidance is amplified for firms with high proportions of activist shareholders and attenuated for firms with high levels of stock price informativeness. Overall, our findings suggest that stock liquidity mitigates extreme tax avoidance by enhancing shareholders’ monitoring over firm management.

     

The Impact of Institutional Cross-ownership on Corporate Tax Avoidance: Evidence from Chinese Listed Firms

This study investigates the relationship between institutional cross-ownership and corporate tax avoidance in Chinese listed firms. Our findings indicate that the tax avoidance aggressiveness of Chinese listed firms could be significantly motivated by institutional cross-ownership. This finding is robust to endogeneity tests, namely, propensity score matching estimation, two-stage least squares regression, generalised method of moments test, and a falsification concern. Further, this positive relationship between institutional cross-ownership and tax avoidance is more pronounced for listed firms with greater managerial ability and those with higher auditor industry expertise. Finally, such a relationship is more obvious for cross-owners within the same industry, but only significant for independent cross-owners, non-state-owned enterprises and firms within a less competitive industry. All main findings are robust to various robustness tests.     

税收规避与财务报告成本的权衡研究——来自中国2008年所得税改革的证据

本文以我国2008年所得税改革为契机,借鉴Shackelford和Shevlin(2001)的税与非税因素权衡模型,实证考察有减税预期的上市公司在税收规避中是否权衡了财务报告成本。本文发现,有减税预期的公司存在将减税之前期间的利润推迟确认到未来低所得税率期间的盈余管理行为,且为避免这一行为过于明显而遭致惩罚,利润跨期转移的期间宽度较长。但有着高财务报告成本的公司明显降低了这一跨期利润转移的动机。研究证实了我国上市公司在税收规避决策中权衡了税与财务报告成本。研究结论有助于进一步丰富盈余管理文献,对当前我国税收制度改革具有一定参考意义。     

Chief financial officer co-option and tax avoidance in European listed firms

This paper investigates the impact of chief financial officer (CFO) co-option on corporate tax avoidance. Using hand-collected data from a sample of nonfinancial listed firms included in the S&P350-Europe from 2013 to 2019, we find that firms with co-opted CFOs exhibit higher levels of tax avoidance. We also find that the board membership of co-opted CFOs moderates their propensity to engage in tax avoidance. These results introduce novel evidence about the role of CFOs in influencing firms’ levels of tax avoidance. They also shed light on the monitoring activity of the board of directors in the presence of board members who are also key decision-makers in tax strategies.     

Tax avoidance, cost of debt and shareholder activism: Evidence from Korea

This paper examines the impact of tax avoidance on the cost of debt and its interaction effect with shareholder activism. Using Korean firms, I find a negative relationship between tax avoidance and the cost of debt, supporting the trade-off theory. Further tests reveal that the negative relationship becomes stronger when the level of institutional ownership is high. It becomes even stronger after 1998, when the shareholder rights of institutional investors were strengthened. It suggests that the managerial opportunism theory has an additional explanation for tax avoidance activities. My findings indicate that tax avoidance reduces the cost of debt through trade-offs and creates a managerial rent diversion, which is mitigated in firms with larger institutional holdings.     

Strategic reaction and tax avoidance: Evidence from the effect of large IPOs on peers

We examine whether and how industry peers use tax avoidance as a strategic mechanism to maintain their relative competitive positions. We exploit a unique setting where a relatively large private firm obtains capital, visibility, and creditability by going public (i.e., an IPO), imposing significant competitive pressure on its industry peers. We find that peer firms increase tax avoidance after large IPOs. Further analysis shows that the increase of tax avoidance is driven by firms with high growth needs and firms with high operating uncertainty, suggesting that tax aggressiveness is aligned with other strategic risk-taking changes to improve industry competitiveness. We rule out two alternative explanations: 1) existing peers use relative product market power to hedge against tax risk and engage in tax avoidance; 2) peers mimic the tax avoidance behavior of IPO firms. The main finding is supported by the difference-in-differences test with coarsened exact matching and a battery of robustness tests, including alternative measures and alternative large IPO selection criteria.     

反避税调查目标的实现过程

税收总收入最大和反避税收益最大不一致,税收总成本收益最大和反避税调查成本收益最大也不一致。反避税调查应以税收总成本收益最大为目标,以总成本收益情况作为考核反避税调查部门工作的指标。     

Organizational capital,corporate tax avoidance,and firm value

We show that firms with higher levels of organizational capital (OC) exhibit higher levels of tax avoidance and that shareholders view tax avoidance of high OC firms as value-enhancing. We also show that the OC-tax avoidance relation mainly manifests in firms with good internal governance and information environment and in firms that face tight financial constraints. In addition, we document that tax avoidance by high OC firms increases future cash flow and that high OC firms are more likely to invest in tax haven subsidiaries. Overall, our evidence suggests that OC enhances firms' tax efficiency.