税制扭曲对企业社保缴费的影响——基于增值税留抵的研究

Impact of Tax Distortion on Corporate Social Security Compliance:A Study Based on the VAT Credit

党的二十大报告指出,“健全覆盖全民、统筹城乡、公平统一、安全规范、可持续的多层次社会保障体系”。在人口老龄化加剧和社保法定缴费率下调的背景下,提升企业社保缴费遵从度是确保多层次社保体系可持续发展的关键。本文基于中国的增值税留抵制度和2008—2015年全国税收调查数据,研究税制扭曲对企业社保缴费的影响。研究发现,增值税留抵会显著降低企业社保实际缴费率和参保率,期初留抵税款占现金流的比重越高,企业社保缴费遵从度越低,而留抵退税政策有助于提升企业社保缴费水平。增值税留抵对企业社保缴费的挤出效应主要体现在小企业、民营企业和劳动密集型企业中,在社保机构征收和社保收支责任越小的地区越明显。机制分析显示增值税留抵会加大企业现金流压力,促使企业降低社保缴费基数,并通过外购劳务服务和加大商品关联销售降低企业社保实际缴费。本文从税制扭曲的角度为理解企业的社保逃费行为提供了新的视角,也为通过优化税制设计提升企业社保遵从和社保基金安全提供政策启示。

The report of the 20 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China emphasizes the necessity to establish a multi-level social security system that covers the whole people,coordinates urban and rural areas,and that is fair,unified,safe,standardized,and sustainable.Especially with the expansion of social security coverage and the continuous improvement of security levels in key livelihood areas(e.g.,pensions and medical care),the income security of social insurance funds has become key to building a safety net for people’s lives and a stabilizer of social operation through the social security system.However,over recent years,the sustainable development of China’s social insurance funds has faced increasing challenges.For example,the budget gap of social security funds after excluding financial subsidies has reached 2.66 trillion yuan in 2020.Therefore,increasing the income of social insurance funds has become an important task for improving the Chinese social security system.The actual income of the social insurance fund is mainly affected by two factors:the statutory payment rate,and the actual payment rate and coverage.In terms of statutory payment rates,the sum of China’s five social insurance statutory payment rates is already at a relatively high level compared with rates globally.Therefore,reducing the statutory payment rate has been an important direction and internal requirement of China’s fee reduction reform in recent years.However,in terms of actual payment rate and coverage,a clear gap exists between the actual payment rate and the legal payment rate of social insurance in China.It is common for companies to fail to pay,underpay,or pay their social insurance premiums late.The core goal to avoid corporate social security evasion is to reduce the tax burden on corporate cash flow.Previous studies have analyzed the impact of tax collection and management on corporate social security payment,with the goal to identify the substitution behavior between corporate tax payment and social security payment from the perspective of collection and management.However,the conclusions drawn are inconsistent.In addition to collection and management factors,the extra burden brought by the irrational design of the tax system also aggravates the tendency of social security fee evasion,but this issue has not received much attention in the literature.In this paper,based on China’s VAT credit system and using Chinese tax survey data from 2008 to 2015,this paper examines how enterprises can offset the financial pressure caused by the distortion of the tax system by reducing social security contributions.The study found that VAT credits will significantly reduce the actual payment rate and insurance participation rate of the enterprise’s social security.The proportion of the tax credit at the beginning of the period in the operating cash flow will increase by 1%,which will lead to a 0.44%decrease in the actual social security payment rate and a 0.23%decrease in the insurance participation rate.This effect is more pronounced in small enterprises and private enterprises with tighter cash flows,as well as in laborintensive enterprises that are more sensitive to social security contributions.The effect has no significant impact on large enterprises,state-owned enterprises,and capital-intensive enterprises.This effect is affected by pressures imposed by collection agencies and regional social security expenditures,and the effect is more apparent in regions with less pressure on social security collection and social security revenue and expenditure.Mechanism analysis shows that VAT credits increase the cash flow pressure of enterprises,prompt enterprises to reduce the social security payment base,and reduce the payment burden of enterprises by purchasing labor services and increasing related sales of goods.The marginal contributions of this paper are listed as follows:First,from the perspective of the financial pressure caused by the distortion of the tax system,the research on the influencing factors of corporate social security payment behavior is expanded.This expansion provides a new perspective for understanding the social security premium evasion of Chinese companies.Second,this paper enriches the research on the micro-economic impact of the VAT system.The existing literature has carried out considerable research on the impact of the VAT system on corporate behavior,but not enough attention has been directed to the VAT credit system.This paper presents a supplementary analysis from the perspective of reducing social security compliance,which helps to deepen the understanding of the micro-effects of VAT.Third,under the background of unified tax and fee management,this paper provides policy inspiration for reducing the tax burden of enterprises and promoting payment compliance by optimizing the design of the VAT system.This paper shows that flaws in the design of the tax system itself are an important reason for the increased burden on enterprises and for social security fee evasion.Improving the level of collection and management,optimizing the design of the tax system,unblocking the VAT deduction chain,and timely tax refunds play an important role in reducing the tax burden of enterprises and reducing the distortion of the tax system on corporate behavior.