分权时序与企业实际税负

THE SEQUENCE OF DECENTRALIZATION AND THE ACTUAL TAX BURDEN OF ENTERPRISES

中国地方政府近年来陆续开展的行政“扩权强县”与财政“省直管县”改革存在着鲜明的时序差异,主要分为“先财后行”“先行后财”“并行分权”三种类型。这三种类型的分权时序对县级政府税收征管力度的冲击存在差异,进而对辖区内企业实际税负产生非对称影响。为此,本文将中国工业企业数据与县级面板数据进行匹配,建立多时点双重差分模型,研究分权时序对企业实际税负的影响及其机制。结果显示,“先财后行”分权时序显著降低了企业实际税负,“先行后财”分权时序加重了企业实际税负,而“并行分权”分权时序对企业实际税负的影响并不显著。机制分析发现,“先财后行”分权时序实施后县级政府财政压力相对减轻,税收征管力度有所下降;“先行后财”分权时序实施后县级政府财政压力相对增大,税收征管力度相应增强;“并行分权”分权时序实施后县级财政压力相对不变,税收征管力度变化不显著。据此,本文提出了优化分权时序、完善地方税体系、健全税收征管监督机制等政策建议。

There are sequential differences in Chinese style decentralization reforms such as“strength-ening county power”and“provincially administered counties”.The first one is to implement decentraliza-tion in the field of finance first,and then in the economic and social field;the second one is to implement decentralization in the economic and social field first,and then in the field of finance;and the third one is to implement decentralization simultaneously in the finance field and in the economic and social field.These three types of decentralization reform have different effects on taxation efforts,and thus have asymmetric effects on the actual tax burden of enterprises.This paper matches the data of Chinese indus-trial enterprises with county-level data and establishes a staggered DID model to study the influence and mechanism of the sequence of decentralization on the actual tax burden of enterprises.The study confirms that implementing decentralization in the finance field first and then in the economic and social field can re-duce the actual tax burden of enterprises.For areas with administrative decentralization in advance,the actual tax burden of enterprises has been increased after decentralization reform.For enterprises in regions where the two fields are decentralized simultaneously,the actual tax burden does not change significantly.Mechanism analysis finds that the fiscal pressure of county-level governments will be reduced and taxation efforts will decrease after the decentralization sequence of“finance field first,economic and social field lat-er”;the fiscal pressure of county-level governments has increased after the decentralization sequence of“e-conomic and social field first,finance field later”,and taxation efforts have been strengthened;after the“parallel decentralization” sequence of decentralization,county-level fiscal pressures remain relatively un-changed,and tax efforts remain unchanged.Based on the research conclusions,this paper suggests that local governments should consider the decentralization sequence,improve the local tax system,and im-prove the local government tax collection and supervision mechanism.