资本弱化税制与外资企业税收规避行为研究

Thin capitalization rules and tax avoidance of foreign-funded enterprises

资本弱化是跨国公司避税的常用手段,我国的资本弱化税制于2008年建立起来,但目前却鲜有我国资本弱化税制对外资企业影响的研究.本文以中国工业企业数据库2004年~2011年制造业企业为样本,采用双重差分模型检验了我国资本弱化税制对外资企业资本弱化避税行为的影响.研究结果表明:我国的资本弱化税制有效地降低了部分外资企业,尤其是负债权益比高于2的企业的资本弱化程度,一定程度上抑制了外资企业的资本弱化避税行为;在实际税负方面,由于外资企业较强的税收规避动机,其实际税负远远低于法定税率,而资本弱化税制确实有效提高了外资企业的实际税负,但资本弱化程度高的外资企业税负提升程度小于资本弱化程度低的外资企业.同时本文也发现了资本弱化税制作为明线监管对于未达监管要求的外资企业具有学习效应:负债权益比率未超过了法定标准的外资企业则会提升其资本弱化程度.

Thin capitalization is a common means of tax avoidance for multinational corporations.China's thin capitalization rule was established in 2008.However,there is few research on the effect of China's thin capitalization rule on foreign-funded enterprises at present.Based on data from Chinese manufacturing enterprises database in 2004-2011,this paper uses difference in difference model to test the impact of the thin capitalization rule on the tax avoidance behavior through thin capitalization of foreign-funded enterprises empirically.The results show that China's thin capitalization rule has effectively reduced the degree of thin capitalization of some foreign-funded enterprises,especially those whose debt-equity ratio is higher than 2,and inhibited the tax avoidance through thin capitalization of foreign-funded enterprises.Due to the strong tax avoidance motive,the actual tax burden of foreign-funded enterprises is far lower than the statutory tax rate.Though the thin capitalization rule has effectively improved the actual tax burden of foreign-funded enterprises,the tax burden of foreign-funded enterprises with high degree of thin capitalization is still less than that of foreign-funded enterprises with low degree-of thin capitalization.At the same time,the thin capitalization rule has a learning effect on foreign-funded enterprises that fail to meet the regulatory requirements:foreign-funded enterprises whose debt-equity ratio does not exceed the statutory standards will increase their degree of thin capitalization.