企业互联网使用与大数据治税的效应

Corporate Internet Use and the Effect of Tax Administration Based on Big Data

互联网为企业传递信息和组织资源提供了极大便利,企业在使用互联网获得相应便利的同时也形成了海量数据。近年来多地税务部门推行互联网大数据治税举措,通过采集和分析互联网上与企业运营相关的第三方大数据,来辅助对企业的税收征管。本文搜集相关数据并通过理论分析和实证检验发现,互联网大数据治税举措能显著提升企业税收遵从度。异质性检验表明,对于那些互联网应用更多、非国有控股、规模更大的企业,以及政策宣传更充分、以往税收征管力度更强的地区,互联网大数据治税举措的影响更加凸显。机制检验表明,抑制收入隐匿和关联交易,是互联网大数据治税举措发挥作用的两个具体渠道。本文研究表明,互联网上形成的大数据可以为税收征管等社会治理的精细化和高效化提供支持,深化了对信息时代背景下税收征管中第三方信息的内涵和作用的认识,为数字时代背景下的现代税收征管体制建设提供了参考。

The internet has not only changed the mode of information dissemination,but also produced a large amount of data closely related to the decision-making behavior of economic players,which brings new opportunities for improving national governance.With the reform of Chinese tax administration system,tax departments’capability to obtain the information on enterprises’operation condition and real output,has become increasingly important to further improve the efficiency of tax administration.Many Chinese cities’tax departments have vigorously promoted tax administration based on big data in recent years.Except for integrating the data from the other departments such as bank and government departments,Chinese tax departments also actively collect the third-party information on the Internet to detect and compare enterprises’real operation condition and tax avoidance activities and further to improve their ability of tax administration.This paper examines whether the tax administration system based on big data effectively restrains enterprises’tax avoidance incentive,and explores the potential mechanisms.Theoretically,enterprises’tax compliance depends on the trade-off between the benefits of tax avoidance and the risk of penalties.If an enterprise believes that the tax department has exact evidence on its real operation condition and payable tax,it will anticipate a high risk of tax avoidance and will thus increase its tax compliance.Tax departments can not only use the information from corporate tax declaration and tax inspection,but can also use the third-party information to detect enterprises’real operation condition and tax avoidance activities.As an important part of third-party information,big data is also conducive to reducing the information asymmetry between enterprises and tax departments.In recent years,many local governments have actively promoted the deployment of tax administration system based on big data,collecting and analyzing the third-party information formed on the internet and using them as an important reference for tax administration and inspection and punishment.The collection of and attention to the tax system to the enterprise-related information will affect enterprises’judgment of the risk of being punished,and make them improve the tax compliance.With a sample of A-share listed enterprises in China from 2009 to 2019,we conduct a difference-in-differences(DID)test on the impact of tax administration based on big data on corporate tax avoidance.Our results present significant evidence that first,enterprises decrease tax avoidance activities when the tax departments have announced to use the big data to detect enterprises’tax incompliance.The effect occurs by restraining enterprises’revenue concealment and related-party transactions.Second,the effect is more prominent in non-state-owned enterprises,enterprises with more internet applications or with larger asset scale,and in regions with more media news on the policy and with stronger tax administration in the past.Third,the mechanism test shows that the suppression of revenue concealment and related-party transactions are two specific channels through which tax measures based on big data play a role.The results remain robust under a series of robustness tests,including examining the feasibility of DID method,carrying out instrumental variable tests,and utilizing other tax avoidance measures.The marginal contributions and policy references of our empirical findings are as follows.First,more and more studies have emphasized the importance of third-party information in tax administration in recent years.This paper shows that the big data,generated by enterprises’usage of internet to improving operating efficiency,can also be used by tax departments to promote tax administration,which also improve enterprises’tax compliance.This enriches the connotation of third-party information of tax administration in the information age.Second,previous studies have shown that the advancement of tax departments’technology to obtain the information on enterprises’operation condition increases the efficiency of tax administration.This paper further shows that tax departments’technology of obtaining and analyzing the big data also play an important role in improving enterprises’tax compliance,thus supplementing the literature on technology of tax administration.Third,existing literature has shown that the Internet has brought many benefits to enterprises,and paid attention to the value of information on the internet.This paper further shows that the penetration of internet has also increased the corporate information transparency.That is,big data provides a new information source for the tax government to detect enterprises’real output.This contributes to existing research on the influence of internet on enterprises.Fourth,the research findings in this paper on the effect of tax administration based on big data also provide rich policy implications to the tax departments for better improving enterprises’tax compliance and raising tax revenue in the information age.