增值税税率下调、税收成本权衡与企业盈余管理策略

Value-added Tax Rate Reduction,Trade-off of Tax Cost and the Strategy of Earnings Management

税收对企业盈余管理行为的影响是学界和业界长期关注的重要话题。然而,已有文献主要关注以企业所得税为代表的直接税对盈余管理的影响,还极少有研究从间接税视角展开分析。以中国于2017年开始实施的系列增值税税率下调改革为契机,文章使用双重差分模型检验了间接税对企业盈余管理行为的影响。研究发现,增值税税率的下调改变了企业盈余管理活动的增值税与所得税的相对成本,促使企业调整了自身盈余管理策略。具体表现为:企业在改革后显著增加了基于增值税类损益科目的盈余管理活动,而显著降低了基于非增值税类损益科目的盈余管理活动。但整体上,企业的盈余管理活动趋于下降。进一步分析发现,增值税对企业盈余管理策略调整的影响在税负转嫁能力较弱的企业、所得税率较高的企业、不存在出口业务的企业以及实施向上盈余管理的企业中更加显著。最后,投资者对于及时调整盈余管理策略的企业给予了积极评价。本文研究结论填补了间接税税收成本驱动下企业盈余管理行为的文献空白,丰富了增值税影响企业会计行为的研究成果。

Tax cost is an important factor affecting earnings management. Since the emergence of research on earnings management, the impact of taxation on corporate earnings management has been an important topic in academia, resulting in the development of a branch of literature on tax-induced earnings management. A review of the existing literature reveals that studies mainly focus on direct taxes, particularly corporate income tax, while the impact of indirect taxes on corporate earnings management remains under-examined. Unlike countries such as the United States which relies on direct taxes such as income tax as the primary source of tax revenue, many developing countries represented by China rely more heavily on indirect taxes for fiscal revenue. Therefore, it is more important to explore the impact of indirect taxes on corporate earnings management based on the Chinese institutional background.In addition, the logic of indirect taxes affecting corporate earnings management is fundamentally different from that of income tax. Specifically, without considering book-tax differences, firms will incur income tax costs when manipulating any profit and loss accounts that affect pre-tax profits. However, indirect tax costs do not necessarily occur. Take value-added tax(VAT) as an example. VAT is mainly related to the sales of goods and the purchases of raw materials, thus mainly associated with profit and loss accounts such as revenue and operating costs in the income statement(hereinafter referred to as “VAT-related profit and loss accounts”), while its correlation with other profit and loss accounts is relatively low. When a firm manipulates a VAT-related profit and loss account, it incurs both income tax costs and VAT costs. How-ever, when a firm manipulates profit and loss accounts that are less related to VAT, e.g., expense and non-recurring gains and losses(hereinafter referred to as “non-VAT-related profit and loss accounts”), they will face income tax costs but not VAT costs. Therefore, when VAT is incorporated into the earnings management decision, firms will weigh the relative tax costs between different account types when manipulating earnings. This trade-off does not exist when examining the im-pact of income tax.This paper takes the series of VAT rate reduction reforms implemented in China in 2017 as an opportunity to use a difference-in-differences model to examine the impact of indirect taxes on corporate earnings management. We find that the VAT rate reduction changes the earnings management strategies of firms. Specifically, firms significantly increase earnings management based on VAT-related profit and loss accounts, while significantly reducing such activities based on non-VAT-related profit and loss accounts. However, the overall trend of earnings management is declining. Furthermore,the impact of VAT on the adjustment of earnings management strategies is more significant among firms with weak ability to pass on tax burden, higher income tax rates, without export business, and engaged in upward earnings management.Finally, investors respond positively to firms that adjust their earnings management strategies in a timely manner.The conclusions of this paper have at least the following two theoretical contributions.(1) It enriches the relevant literature on the impact of taxation on corporate earnings management. Existing literature mainly focuses on income tax,while there is little research on the impact of VAT on corporate earnings management. Considering the logical differences between direct and indirect taxes in affecting earnings management, this paper takes the VAT rate reform as an opportunity to fill the research gap in corporate earnings management driven by indirect tax costs, and also responds to the calls of Dyreng & Maydew(2018) and Feng et al.(2021).(2) It enriches the research on the impact of VAT on corporate accounting behavior. Existing literature mainly examines the impact of VAT on corporate financial behavior, including fixed asset investment, technological innovation, and labor demand, with few studies that approach this issue from the perspective of corporate accounting behavior. This paper expands the academic literature on the impact of VAT on corporate accounting behavior from the perspective of earnings management.