未预期的非税负担冲击:基于“营改增”的研究

The Unanticipated Effects of Firms Informal Tax Burdens:Evidence from the VAT Reform in China

减税和降费都是供给侧结构性改革的重要举措,两者效果密切关联。本文基于2006—2016年中国私营企业调查数据,使用三重差分模型考察了“营改增”对企业非税负担的影响。研究发现,“营改增”显著增加了企业的各种规费支出,并且这一效应有增强的趋势,样本期间的涉企收费政策未能充分发挥制约效果。进一步发现,获得减税支持的传统增值税行业,非税负担显著增加,体现了“按下葫芦浮起瓢”的跷跷板效应;非政治关联、中小型和初创型企业,更容易遭受非税负担冲击。机制表明,财政压力和非税征管力度上升是“营改增”加重企业非税负担的重要原因。长期来看,深入推进涉企收费管理制度建设,有助于约束地方非税收入征管行为,促进企业转型升级。

In recent years,China has introduced a series of policies for tax reduction,which have significantly lessened the tax burdens on enterprises.However,unlike most developed countries,Chinese enterprises still face both formal and informal tax burdens,and the combination of these burdens is restricting the development of Chinese enterprises.The literature has explained the rapid growth of informal tax revenue in China,and it does so with reference to the trends of fiscal decentralization,political promotion,central grants,and local fiscal transparency.However,these studies ignore the effects of tax reform on the growth of informal tax revenue.Although previous studies have explored the effects of tax reform on local tax revenue,they have not examined the factors of revenue distribution between the central and local governments,the tax burdens of residents and enterprises,or the effects of tax reform on the informal tax burdens of enterprises.Since 1994,a series of tax reforms have been implemented to modify the distribution of tax revenue.These reforms have gradually decreased the share of revenue that local governments receive from the main taxes.They have thus increased the financial pressure on local governments,which has pushed many local governments to seek other ways of gaining fiscal revenue.In many cases,local governments have imposed their own informal taxes.To standardize the enforcement of local informal tax collection,the government has initiated a system to catalogue corporation-related fees.Therefore,to accurately assess the effects of the tax system reform on the informal tax burdens for enterprises,we must conduct research on the fiscal behavior of local governments and consider the effects of the corporation-related fees system.One of the top priorities for tax reform in China has been to replace the business tax with a value-added tax(VAT reform).This reform has played an important role in reducing the tax burdens on enterprises.However,after the VAT reform,the business tax(which had been the largest local tax)became the value-added tax,which was shared between the central and local governments,thereby reducing local governments actual shares of tax revenues.If the VAT reform increases fiscal pressure on local governments,then they have a motive to increase their informal tax revenues,which exerts a negative impact on the total tax burden imposed on enterprises.The VAT pilot reforms were gradually carried out in different regions and industries,and they have served as a good policy experiment for assessing the effects of local financial pressure.Specifically,the VAT pilot reform was initially carried out in 2012,and it involved transportation services and six major modern service industries in nine provinces,such as Shanghai and Beijing.The VAT reforms then gradually expanded to other regions and other service industries.As of May 2016,the VAT pilot reform was completed for all industries and regions in China.This investigation is based on survey data concerning China's private enterprises from 2006 to 2016,and it uses the triple differences approach to identify the effects of the VAT reform on enterprises informal tax burdens.The results indicate that the reform significantly increased the firms administrative fees,and that this effect is growing.During our sample period,the government s fee-cutting policies did not effectively restrain the adverse effects of the VAT reform.Moreover,the traditional VAT industries,i.e.,non-politically connected firms,small and medium-sized firms,and young enterprises,have all been more vulnerable to the effects of an increased informal tax burden.The survey data show that the VAT reform has increased the informal tax burdens of enterprises,and it has done so mainly through increasing the financial pressure from local governments and strengthening the enforcement of local informal tax collection.In the long run,developing a system to manage enterprise-related fees should be helpful for reducing local informal tax burdens and promoting the expansion of local enterprises.This paper contributes to the literature in the following ways.First,it provides a new explanation for the effects of the tax reform.Previous studies on the causes for the rapid growth of informal tax revenues have mainly focused on the issues of political promotion and fiscal decentralization.Second,this paper examines the effects that informal tax burdens have on local firms.The previous literature has generally examined the effects of the VAT reforms in terms of their reductions of formal taxes.Finally,this paper accurately estimates the effects of the VAT reform on enterprises informal tax burdens by applying a triple differences approach to address the problem of endogeneity between local financial pressures and informal tax burdens.