CFO专业胜任能力对企业税负影响的机理及经济后果

The Mechanism and Economic Consequences of the Impact of CFO Professional Competence on Enterprise Tax Burden

如何合理有效地降低企业税负是理论界和实务界一个非常重要的课题。本文以2010—2020年中国A股上市企业为研究对象,采用固定效应模型,实证分析了CFO专业胜任能力对企业税负影响的作用机理及经济后果。研究结果表明,CFO专业胜任能力会降低企业税负,且上述结论在考虑内生性问题后依然稳健成立。异质性分析发现,这种效应在企业所在地区税收征管力度较大、企业高管政治关联较低和非国有上市企业中更显著。机制分析发现,具有专业胜任能力的CFO会提高研发投入以获得更多研发费用税前加计扣除的税基优惠,同时收到的税收返还也更多。经济后果分析表明,当CFO具有专业胜任能力且企业税负更低时,企业未来价值更高。上述研究结果表明,具有专业胜任能力的CFO会通过利用税收优惠政策降低企业税负,最终提高企业价值。本文不仅在理论上有助于丰富有关CFO专业胜任能力与企业税负的研究文献,而且在实践中也有助于为上市企业如何合理配置人力资源以降低企业税负提供指导性建议。

As an important part of the supply⁃side structural reform,the Chinese government has adopted a series of tax reforms in recent years.At the same time,the implementation of the“Golden Tax⁃III”has resulted in increasingly strict tax supervision.Therefore,with the frequent new taxation policies and the increasingly standardized tax environment,how to reduce corporate tax burdens reasonably and effectively has become an important issue that needs to be resolved urgently.China􀆳s tax system has not only characteristics of a huge system,a large number of policies,and frequent new policies,but also the problem of tax uncertainty.The key to whether a company can effectively enjoy benefits of tax reforms lies in whether executives have the incentives to reduce tax and whether they fully understand and utilize these tax policies.CFO is the top decision⁃maker and the person in charge of enterprise accounting information and financial management.This paper attempts to explore the impact of the CFO􀆳s professional competence on corporate tax burden,and its impact path.Further,this paper also attempts to test whether the reduction of corporate tax burden brought by CFO professional competence is conducive to improving corporate value.Using a sample of listed firms in China from 2010 to 2020,we analyze the impact of CFO􀆳s professional competence on corporate tax burden with a firm fixed⁃effect model.The results are as follows.First,CFO with professional competence leads to more tax avoidance,and the results are robust after considering endogeneity,and conducting a series of robustness tests.Second,the effect of CFO􀆳s professional competence on tax burden is more pronounced in firms with high tax enforcement,with fewer political connections,and non⁃SOEs.Third,a possible mechanism is that CFOs with professional competence increase R&D expenses for additional reduction in income tax and receive more tax refunds from the government.Lastly,CFOs with professional competence help improve firm value by reducing tax evasion.The main contributions of this study are as follows.First,it complements research on influencing factors of enterprise tax burden from the perspective of professional competence.It also provides evidence for the“efficiency view”of tax avoidance as it finds the reduction of tax burden led by executive ability helps increase firm value in the future.Second,it advances upper echelons theory literature by empirically examining and verifying a heterogeneous characteristic of senior executives,that is,professional competence.We demonstrate the significant role of CFO’s professional competence in reducing the tax burden and improving firm value.Third,different from existing research on CFOs,which mainly focuses on their personal characteristics,professional background and authority,this paper enriches existing CFO literature by presenting empirical evidence on the relation between the CFO􀆳s professional competence and tax avoidance.Fourth,it provides guidance and suggestions for listed companies to rationally arrange human resources to reduce the corporate tax burden and increase firm value in practice.