环境治理会导致公司避税的气球效应吗?——基于中央环保督察的效果分析

Will Environmental Governance Lead to the Ballooning Effect of Corporate Tax Avoidance?——Based on the Effect Analysis of the Central Environmental Inspection

根据环境负外部性理论,企业在环境治理过程中可能存在通过避税转嫁环境治理成本的“气球效应”。本文以2016年开始的中央环保督察作为准自然实验,运用多期双重差分法,选取2009-2018年沪深A股上市公司为样本数据考察企业“成本转嫁”行为。研究发现,中央环保督察具有抑制企业避税的作用,具体的作用机制为中央环保督察工作的开展给地方政府带来了财政压力和政治压力,财政压力迫使地方政府加强税收监管,政治压力消除了政府存在的寻租空间,在双重压力下,地方政府的征税行为得到规范。

According to the theory of negative environmental externalities,enterprises may have a“balloon effect”of passing on environmental governance costs through tax avoidance in the process of environmental governance.Taking the central environmental protection inspectorate started in 2016 as a quasi-natural experiment,this paper uses the multi-period double difference method to select the A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2009 to 2018 as the sample data to study the“cost pass-through”behavior of enterprises through tax avoidance.It is found that the central environmental protection inspectorate has the effect of inhibiting enterprise tax avoidance,and the specific mechanism brings fiscal andpolitical pressure to local governments for the development of central environmental protection inspection,fiscal pressure forces local governments to strengthen tax supervision,political pressure eliminates the government's rent-seeking space,and under the dual pressure,local governments'taxation behavior is regulated.