商品贸易中的转让定价与税基侵蚀:来自我国对外投资企业的实证检验

文章利用2000~2010年海关出口数据和对外直接投资名录,在微观层面上识别了中国对外直接投资企业出口商品环节通过转让定价进行避税,侵蚀我国企业所得税税基。研究发现:(1)中国对外直接投资企业在出口贸易中正在利用转让定价进行避税,具体表现为,出口目的国税率每低于我国1%,关联交易价格会显著下降0.002%,半弹性为-0.002;(2)中国对外签署的双重征税协定对企业转让定价避税有明显的抑制作用;(3)企业转让定价避税在不同所有制企业中存在异质性,具体表现为,国有企业相对民营企业和外资企业来说转让定价避税程度更大。     

Decentralization and Transfer Pricing Under Oligopoly

This paper presents a simple model of a partially decentralized multinational firm (MNF) in competition with a rival firm. It is shown that transfer pricing can be used as a rent-shifting device by the MNF to compete with the rival. This arises because the MNF headquarters uses the transfer price to manage different subsidiaries. The specific value of the transfer price chosen by the MNF depends on whether the rival firm produces the intermediate good, the final good, or both and whether the rival is integrated or not. In particular, both decentralization and competition with a fully integrated rival result in lower transfer prices.     

新企业所得税法六大税收筹划策略

随着2008年1月1日新企业所得税法的实施,企业所得税的税收筹划策略将会发生很大的变化。本文就新企业所得税法提出了六大税收筹划策略,即企业组织形式的筹划、总分支机构的筹划、计税依据的筹划、税率的筹划、税收优惠的筹划和关联交易的筹划。     

分税制、转移支付与地方政府财政努力

本文实证检验了分税制和转移支付对地方政府财政努力的影响,通过引入空间效应,将总效应分解为直接效应和间接效应。我们发现,地方财政收入分成比例的提高会提高地方政府财政努力程度,财政转移支付依赖越高则地方政府财政努力程度越低,并且地方政府会依据过去的分成比例和财政转移支付来决定其财政努力水平。利用空间计量模型,我们还发现,地方政府之间存在横向模仿行为,横向政府间财政策略存在空间外溢性。     

日本推进亚洲循环资源流动的构想及实践

当前,随着全球资源环境问题的日益加剧,推动循环资源的国际流动,构建国际资源循环系统,已成为缓解资源短缺,促进资源可持续利用的重要途径.日本政府推进亚洲循环资源流动的基本目的即在于此.当前,随着经济的快速发展,我国正面临着环境污染和资源短缺的双重挑战,发展循环经济已成为应对这一挑战的必然选择.为此,必须构建国内外资源循环系统,通过循环资源的国际流动,吸纳适合我国需要的各类循环资源,促进我国资源的可持续供应.     

Conflicting Transfer Pricing Incentives and the Role of Coordination

Our study evaluates the role of coordination, at both the government and the firm level, on the transfer prices set by U.S. multinational corporations (MNCs) when income taxes and duties cannot be jointly minimized with a single transfer price. We find that either the presence of a coordinated income tax and customs enforcement regime or coordination between the income tax and customs functions alters transfer prices for these firms. Our analyses have implications for both firms and taxing authorities. Specifically, our findings suggest that MNCs might decrease their aggregate tax burdens by increasing coordination within the firm or that governments might increase their aggregate revenues by improving coordinating enforcement across taxing authorities. Our study is novel in that we document, in a specific setting, how coordination influences MNCs’ tax reporting behavior.     

日本转移定价税制研究

转移价格是指跨国关联企业之间进行交易时使用的价格。70年代以后，随着日本经济实力的增强，日本企业经营国际化迅猛发展，出现了许多利用国际关联企业转移所得而避税的情况，而日本有关跨国公司转移定价的税制的实施，使这一避税现象得到了了的避免。随着我国加入WTO后外资的更多进入，加强转移定价的管理势在民行，学习发达国家的先进做法，将有助于我们在这方面少走弯路。     

垄断性卡组织多产品定价策略

银行卡市场具有典型的双边市场特征,卡组织必须制定适当的价格策略方能吸引消费者与商户加入平台。本文运用双边市场理论分别讨论了单卡与双卡情形下垄断性卡组织的定价策略。结果发现,单卡情形下,持卡人借记卡使用费费率低于信用卡费率,而借记卡商户扣率高于信用卡商户扣率,愿意受理借记卡的商户比率要低于受理信用卡的商户比率。在商户市场势力足够小的情况下,最优的双卡商户扣率比单卡条件下的商户扣率低。     

协商决策下跨国公司转让定价

无论外部约束存在与否,针对跨国公司目标税后利润最大化而言,集中决策跨国公司的转让定价决策结果总是弱优于分散决策的跨国公司转让定价的决策结果。然而问题是,集中决策在现实中不能被跨国公司普遍地运用。本文针对这个问题,分别讨论了在完美信息和非完美信息,不存在外部约束和存在外部约束条件下,协商决策的跨国公司转让定价决策结果。我们认为协商决策结果弱优于分散决策结果。     

The Three Hurdles of Tax Planning: How Business Context,Aims of Tax Planning,and Tax Manager Power Affect Tax Expense

The question of why some companies pay fewer taxes than others is a widely investigated topic of interest. One of the well‐known explanations is a phenomenon called tax avoidance. We develop a grounded theory model of influences on corporate tax planning through a series of 19 in‐depth German tax expert interviews. Our research identifies three independent hurdles in the tax planning process, which can help to explain different levels of tax expense across companies. Those three hurdles sequentially address which tax planning methods are available (defined by business characteristics), desirable (given via aims of tax planning), and implementable (determined by tax manager power). A large part of previous research has estimated the influence of firm characteristics, which we incorporate in the broader term business characteristics, on tax expense, while the other influences that we identify have largely been left “out of the equation.” In the light of the current public debates on tax avoidance, we reveal two important findings: First, we find that companies vary widely in the aggressiveness of their aims of tax planning, which contrasts sharply with the picture often drawn by undifferentiated media reports. Second, tax managers can assume very different levels of power in their organization. The implementation of desirable tax planning methods varies depending on this level of tax manager power. In conclusion, our three‐hurdle grounded theory provides generalizable insights into important influences on corporate tax planning which help to explain the observed variation in tax expenses across firms.     

Renting Goodwill in International Marketing Channels: An Analysis of Pricing Strategies and Bargaining Power

This paper investigates the pricing decisions of foreign manufacturers in international markets within a bargaining framework with asymmetric information and the rental of goodwill. The key findings are: first, the foreign manufacturer follows a mark-up pricing strategy in which its gross margin and the quality premium over the domestic product are shared with the importer. Second, a manufacturer–importer contract occurs only when the manufacturer’s bargaining power is within an admissible range which shrinks as transaction costs increase. Third, the domestic consumer will only purchase the foreign product if the importer’s goodwill in the domestic market is sufficiently large to signal quality. The paper contributes to the literature on exchange relationships between foreign manufacturers and importers.     

Who Benefits from Inconsistent Multinational Tax Transfer‐Pricing Rules?*

This paper uses a strategic tax compliance model to examine taxpayer reporting and tax authority audit strategies in an international setting with two tax authorities. The setting features both information asymmetry between the taxpayer and the tax authorities and inconsistent tax transfer‐pricing rules. The latter creates the possibility of each country trying to tax the same income. We study the effect of the probability of transfer‐price rule inconsistency on the strategies and payoffs of the taxpayer and the tax authorities. We find that an increase in the probability of transfer‐price rule inconsistency induces more aggressive auditing by governments. It therefore deters taxpayers from shifting income to the country with the lower tax rate in situations in which the transfer‐pricing rules are consistent, and can either increase or decrease the income reported to the low‐tax‐rate country in cases in which the transfer‐pricing rules are inconsistent. We find that an increase in transfer‐price rule inconsistency could either increase or decrease the taxpayer's expected tax liability and could either increase or decrease the deadweight loss from auditing. Our results call into question the conventional wisdom that the prospect of double taxation due to transfer‐price rule inconsistency increases a firm's expected tax liability and governments' expected audit costs.     

阶梯定价、实时定价及其潜在影响

针对实施居民用电梯度定价的决定,研究认为,此次电价调整将提高整体电价水平。阶梯定价只是一种调节收入分配的手段,并没有促进电力行业资源的有效配置。对于未来的电价改革,在引入阶梯定价的框架下,仍存在较大的改革空间。可以考虑在阶梯定价中嵌入实时定价,据此可以用多元化的手段实现不同的目标。但这一切依赖于利益相关者是否具有改革的动力。     

Private Sector Development: Policies,Practices and Problems

Private Sector Development (PSD) has become a central concern of most donors' development cooperation efforts during the last decade. This paper is a critical review of policies in the area. Donors' work with concepts of PSD which are highly abstract, treat developing countries' private sectors as tabula rasa, and focus mainly on macro level preconditions. In practice, however, concrete PSD policies are mostly micro level ones. The paper argues that they are shaped mostly by the nature and interests of private sectors in donor country themselves, incorporate a high proportion of tied aid, and fail basic tests of coherence.     

The Role of Informal Controls and a Bargaining Opponent's Emotions on Transfer Pricing Judgments

While accounting research has demonstrated the role of a decision maker's own emotions during judgments, psychology research proposes that others’ emotions provide an informational signal to assess an opponent's limits, cooperativeness, and toughness during bargaining. We examine how a bargaining opponent's emotions provide information signals that can be used by a selling division manager during transfer pricing decisions and whether informal control system choices by corporate management to foster cooperation can create a context that influences how managers react to these signals. In an experiment, when informal controls to encourage cooperation were absent (less collaborative environment), managers’ selling price estimates were more conciliatory when the opponent was described as displaying negative emotions than when described as displaying positive emotions. However, when informal controls to cooperate were present (more collaborative environment), managers’ selling price estimates were more conciliatory when the opponent displayed positive rather than negative emotions. Path analyses suggest that managers’ perception of their opponents’ signals is the mechanism by which opponents’ emotions influence transfer‐price decisions. This study highlights the role of others’ emotions as information signals during accounting bargaining and provides insight into the context dependency of opponents’ emotions under various control system structures.     

Were Lobbyists on Income Tax Accounting Influenced by Income Strategies?*

Abstract. This study provides further evidence about whether accounting choice decisions reflect a consistent strategy to manage income by investigating the relation between methods used in financial reports and lobbying positions on accounting for income taxes. A numerical income-strategy score is calculated for each lobbyist based on whether the firm chose an income-increasing or income-decreasing alternative for the following: depreciation, inventory, investment tax credit, and pension amortization. We find that firms lobbying for no tax allocation, the most income-increasing alternative, have higher average income strategies (more income increasing) than firms lobbying for comprehensive allocation, the most income-decreasing alternative. Combining the firms favoring either no allocation or partial allocation (due to the conceptual similarity of these alternatives), we find that their average income strategy score is also higher than firms favoring comprehensive allocation. Further, firms favoring discounting deferred taxes, which would ordinarily increase net income by reducing the deferred portion of income tax expense, employ more income-increasing strategies than firms opposed to discounting. In contrast, the hypothesized relationship was not found between income strategy and when the benefits anticipated from the use of a net operating loss carryforward should be recognized. Nevertheless, the combined lobbying positions differ significantly between both the upper and lower third and upper and middle third of the firms classified by their income strategy scores. We also provide analyses to examine whether income strategies can be used to predict lobbying positions. We find that the associations are not sufficiently strong to do so. Résumé. Les décisions relatives aux choix comptables sont-elles le reflet d'une stratégie uniforme visant la gestion des bénéfices? Les auteurs jettent un éclairage nouveau sur cette question, en analysant la relation entre les méthodes utilisées dans les rapports financiers, et ils approfondissent également celle des positions de lobbying relatives à la comptabilisation des impôts sur le bénéfice. Les auteurs attribuent une note numérique à la stratégie de bénéfice de chaque lobbyiste, selon que l'entreprise a opté pour une méthode qui accroît ou décroît le bénéfice, à l'égard des éléments suivants: l'amortissement, les stocks, le crédit d'impôt à l'investissement et la ventilation des coûts découlant des régimes de retraite. Selon les auteurs, les entreprises qui militent en faveur du non-report des impôts, l'option qui contribue le plus à accroître le bénéfice, poursuivent des stratégies de bénéfice moyen supérieur (contribuant davantage à hausser le bénéfice) que les entreprises qui militent en faveur du report intégral, l'option qui contribue le plus à décroître le bénéfice. Si l'on combine les entreprises qui favorisent le non-report et celles qui favorisent un report partiel (compte tenu de la parenté conceptuelle de ces options), il appert que la note correspondant à leur stratégie de bénéfice moyen est, encore une fois, supérieure à celle des entreprises qui favorisent un report intégral. Plus encore, les entreprises qui favorisent l'actualisation des impôts reportés, ce qui devrait ordinairement accroître le bénéfice net en réduisant la portion différée de la charge fiscale, emploient des stratégies qui accroissent davantage le bénéfice que les entreprises qui s'opposent à l'actualisation. En revanche, la relation dont les auteurs posent l'hypothèse entre la stratégie de bénéfice et le moment de la constatation des avantages que l'on prévoit tirer d'un report prospectif de perte d'exploitation n'a pas été confirmée. Les positions de lobbying combinées s'écartent néanmoins sensiblement si l'on compare le tiers supérieur et le tiers inférieur de même que le tiers supérieur et le tiers médian des entreprises classées en fonction des notes attribuées à leur stratégie de bénéfice. Les auteurs procèdent également à des analyses visant à déterminer si les stratégies de bénéfice peuvent être utilisées pour prévoir les positions de lobbying. Ils en concluent que les associations ne sont pas suffisamment probantes pour permettre ces prévisions.