谁的所得税信息质量更高:国有企业还是非国有企业?

Whose Income Tax Information Quality is Higher?State-owned Enterprises or Non-state-owned Enterprises

在所得税对企业利润有着重要影响,以及所得税会计准则实施难度较大的现实背景下,理解所得税信息质量的影响因素对提升企业整体的会计信息质量尤为关键。本文采用中国上市公司数据,首次考察了国有股权对企业所得税信息质量的影响。理论上,一方面,国有企业的所得税信息质量可能更好,这源于:(1)与政府的密切关系使国有企业更有可能拥有税收方面的信息优势,从而管理层在估计经营活动税收后果时的误差更小;(2)国有企业的多重经营目标会使国有企业面临较小的财务业绩考核压力,从而管理层操纵所得税信息的可能性更低。另一方面,国有企业的所得税信息质量也可能更差,这源于国有企业的税收决策往往受到政府干预的影响,从而所得税信息容易被扭曲。本文的实证结果支持第一种预期,即国有企业有更高的所得税信息质量。进一步结果显示,国有企业在所得税方面的信息优势是国有企业具有更高所得税信息质量的原因。本文结论从所得税信息质量的视角加深了我们对国有股权如何影响会计信息质量的理解,也拓展了国有股权与企业税收决策的学术文献。

We examine the effect of state ownership on income tax Information quality by using the data of Chinese listed firms.On one hand,it is expected that income tax Information quality of state-owned enterprises(SOEs)may be higher than that of non-state-owned enterprises(NSOEs),which is due to:(1)the tax-related information advantage SOEs have fewer estimation errors in the tax consequences of their daily operational activities;(2)less pressure on performance appraisal for SOEs because of their multiple operational targets,and thereby lower motivation for their management to manipulate income tax information.On the other hand,the tax accrual quality may show lower because of distorted tax information,which is caused by frequent intervention from government on tax decisions of SOEs.Our empirical results support the former assumption,that is,SOEs have a higher income tax accrual quality than NSOEs.The further results show that the information advantage of SOEs in income tax is the reason why SOEs have higher income tax information quality.Our paper contributes the emerging literature on income tax Information quality and sheds new light on the effect of state ownership on earnings quality.