破产法律制度改革对企业避税的影响——来自《企业破产法》实施的经验证据

The Impact of Bankruptcy Law Reform on Corporate Tax Avoidance:Evidence from the Enforcement of the Corporate Bankruptcy Law

破产法律制度是市场经济的基本制度,也是企业营商环境的重要组成部分。本文运用双重差分法考察以《企业破产法》实施为标志的破产法律制度改革对企业避税的影响。研究结果表明,《企业破产法》实施后,受法律影响较大企业的避税程度显著下降,该结果在排除干扰性因素、改变变量定义、调整样本时间跨度等稳健性检验中依然成立。动态效应分析表明,破产法律制度改革对企业避税的抑制作用从实施当年开始显现,并且是一个长期效应;机制检验发现,破产法律制度改革对债权人的保护有助于提高其放贷的意愿和程度,使得企业从债务融资中获取了额外的债务税盾,与避税形成的非债务税盾构成替代关系,从而相应地减少避税;进一步异质性检验发现,当企业所在地区法治环境较差、金融市场化程度较低,以及自身会计信息透明度较低、内部控制质量较低时,破产法律制度改革对避税的抑制效果更为显著。本文丰富了《企业破产法》实施经济后果的相关研究,为进一步完善我国破产法律制度提供了支持,同时还为探明债权人保护制度在企业避税中所扮演的角色提供了来自中国的经验证据。

The bankruptcy law system is the basic system of the market economy and an important part of the business environment of enterprises,this paper uses Difference-in-Difference method to explore the impact of bankruptcy law reform,which marked as the enforcement of the Corporate Bankruptcy Law,on corporate tax avoidance.The result shows that Corporate Bankruptcy Law can significantly lower corporate tax avoidance,this conclusion holds strongly in several robustness tests such as placebo test,excluding alternative factors and changing the definition of variables.The mechanism test shows that the legal protection of creditors can help improve their willingness and degree to lend,so that enterprises can use more debt financing,providing additional debt tax shield which constitutes a substitutional relationship with the non-debt tax shield formed by tax avoidance,and thereby making companies reduce tax avoidance correspondingly.By further heterogeneity tests,the paper finds that the effect of the law on tax avoidance is more significant when the company locates in area where law environment is poorer or financial marketization is weaker,and when the company itself has lower accounting information transparency or poorer internal control.Based on the above research,this paper provides the following policy suggestions:First,Legislative departments should actively respond to the important instructions of the central government on further improving the bankruptcy legal system,and complete the revision and improvement of the Corporate Bankruptcy Law as soon as possible on the basis of full investigation of law enforcement,making up for the shortcomings that still exist in the protection of creditors,and providing a good guarantee for the sustainable and healthy development of China’s market economy and social harmony.Second,increasing the cost of tax avoidance is not the only way to curb corporate tax avoidance.A good borrowing environment can ease the tax burden of companies,thereby reducing their tax avoidance incentives.In response to the increasingly severe tax situation,the State Administration of Taxation attaches great importance to the construction of the anti-tax avoidance prevention and control system;however,it is undeniable that the tax avoidance prevention and control system has not alleviated the actual tax burden felt by enterprises,the pressure may force it to turn to more concealed means of tax avoidance or to transfer investment abroad,which is not conducive to country’s long-term tax stability and economic development.Therefore,from a long-term perspective,while actively carrying out anti-tax avoidance prevention and control work in the future,the government should also pay attention to the construction of the market business environment,especially the lending environment,so that the two can play a complementary role in inhibiting tax avoidance.Third,China should give full consideration to regional differences when promulgating policies and regulations.If necessary,we can take the lead in implementing policy pilots in some regions in combination with actual needs,and after verifying the correctness and feasibility of the policy plan,we can steadily extend it to all parts of the country,taking full advantages of the socialist political system.The research prospects of this paper are as follows:First,due to space limitations,this paper mainly examines the impact of the Corporate Bankruptcy Law on corporate tax avoidance and its mechanism,and does not further explore the economic consequences of changes in the degree of corporate tax avoidance.The meaning of exploring this question is that the reduction in tax avoidance found in this paper is not due to the increase in tax avoidance costs,but the decrease in the marginal revenue brought by tax avoidance reduces corporate tax avoidance motives,so the result may be different from previous studies,future researches can focus on examining and comparing this.Second,this paper focuses on the mechanism of tax shield substitution effect to study the impact of the Corporate Bankruptcy Law on corporate tax avoidance,but this may not be the only path of mechanism,future researches can dig further on this area.