劳动保护与税收规避:来自2008年《劳动合同法》实施的证据

Labor Protection and Tax Evasion:Evidence from the Implementation of 2008 Labor Contract Law

本文探讨劳动保护对企业税收规避的影响。基于《劳动合同法》实施的准自然实验与省级4位代码工业行业2003—2011年数据,利用双重差分实证发现,政策实施显著降低了劳动密集程度更高行业的实际税率,鉴于承担低实际税率的企业更有可能进行税收规避,由此说明劳动保护可能增加税收规避。控制金融危机、企业所得税改革与增值税改革试点的影响后,实证结论稳健。进一步分析发现,《劳动合同法》实施后实际税率下降,并非政府放松税收征管,抑或是企业增加税收抵扣。最后,政策实施显著影响到企业规模、盈利能力等特征,而上述因素会影响实际税率,这揭示了劳动保护影响税收规避的可能路径。本文研究认为,要制定科学合理的政策,需要将"卢卡斯批判"思想纳入考量。

This paper explores the impact of labor protection on firms’tax evasion.Based on the quasi-experiment of China’s Labor Contract Law,provincial 4-digital industrial data from 2003 to 2011,and DID method,this paper finds that the law significantly decreases the effective tax rate(ETR)of labor-intensive industries.Since firms undertaking lower ETR have greater motivation to avoid tax,the above finding indicates that labor protection may contribute to tax evasion.The main conclusions are robust after controlling the impacts of 2008 financial crisis,corporate income tax reform and value-added tax reform.Further analysis shows that local governments’fiscal pressure will significantly enlarge the negative impact of labor protection,while the law environment has no significant effect,illustrating that the law results in neither decrease in tax collection nor increase in tax credit.Lastly,the policy can significantly influence firms’size and profitability,which will significantly affect ETR.Therefore,these findings shed a light upon possible mechanisms of labor protection and tax evasion.In sum,this paper confirms that taking"Lucas Critique"into account is necessary for establishing reasonable and scientific policies.