税收竞争、税收执法与企业避税

Tax Competition,Tax Enforcement and Tax Avoidance

本文利用中国2002年所得税分享改革的自然实验度量了税收执法力度,并研究其对企业所得税避税的影响。此次改革将企业按照成立时间的差异划归不同的征税机构:国家税务局和地方税务局,地方政府间的税收竞争会降低地方税务局的税收执法力度,却不影响国税局,因此两者之间税收执法的差异就反映了税收竞争的效应。基于中国17万家制造业企业层面的数据,采用断点回归设计的方法,本文在实证上发现地税局对企业所得税的执法不力导致了大范围的企业避税。并且,这种效应仅存在于流动性足够强的企业类型中,如私营企业。这些结果也解释了中国地方政府"援助之手"的来源,以及近年来税收收入超速增长之谜。

Abstract：This paper uses the Income Tax Sharing Reform in 2002 to identify the tax enforcement and estimate its effect on the avoidance of corporate income tax. The reform attributes the firms to two tax agencies, National Tax Bureau and Local Tax Bureau, according their established date. Tax competition will decrease the tax enforcement of Local Tax Bureau, while does not affect the National Tax Bureau, so the difference of tax enforcement perfectly measures tax competition. Based on 170 000 firms＇ data, we find the decreased tax enforcement of Local Tax Bureau induces tax avoidance of firms, which is only robust in firms with enough mobility, such as private firms. These results also explain the helping hand of China local governments and the abnormal increasing of tax revenue.