Empirical Examination of Market Reaction to Transfer Pricing Taxation Announcement in Press： A Japanese Perspective

The Japanese Taxation Agency （JTA） introduced transfer pricing taxation （TPT） in order to suppress the outflow of profits and therefore taxes of Japanese companies, which are expanding overseas. There have been many press reports regarding the application of TPT, and so there is much public attention on this issue. TPT is applied to unnatural transfer prices （TP）. If TPT is applied to a multinational company （MNC）, the company will need to bear enormous documentation costs in its calculation of the ratable price. In addition, in the last few years, the target of TPT is shifting to the overseas transfer of intangible assets, such as trademarks, royalties, patents, and charges income. As a result, companies have become more careful about TPT and investors tend to pay attention to companies＇ TPT strategy. With regard to this point, this paper examines how the market evaluates news regarding TP by investigating the market reaction to an initial press report mentioning that a firm was involved in a TP manipulation and may be guilty of tax underpayment. We examine these events both because press reports are currently under intense scrutiny and because there has been very little research on firms that engage in tax sheltering （see, e.g., Graham ＆ Tucker, 2006; Hanlon ＆ Slemrod, 2009）. Some view the fact that not all firms engage in tax sheltering as surprising because of the widespread view that shelters, at least in the 1990s, in expectation, offered a positive net present value position. The potential negative public relations effect is often cited as one reason for this ＂under-sheltering＂ phenomenon （Bankman, 2004）. On the event study analysis, we find that the Japanese capital market has shown a statistically significant negative reaction to the press reports. This result is due to a strong distrust of corporate activity regarding TP strategies. Moreover, in order to clarify the reason why the market responds to reports of TPT being applied, we compute the cumulative abnormal returns （CARs） around the date of the press report and conduct two-stage least-squares estimation to examine where this result regarding the market reaction comes from. Our results indicate that the variables for intangible assets and effective tax rate and the variables which represent the extent of corporate governance （CG） are statistically significant with respect to these reactions.

Research on Optimizing the Tax Business Environment - Taking Shunde Taxation Bureau's Innovation Reform as an Example

Since 2013,optimizing the business environment has become China's national strategy.In recent years,the Party and the government have continuously introduced a series of new measures such as the'"streamline administration,delegate power,strengthen regulation,and improve services55 reform to promote the continuous optimization of the business environment.As an important part of the business environment,the tax business environment is of great significance to improve the business environment and promote economic development.By analyzing the current situation of the tax business environment in China,this article discusses the existing problems in the process of optimizing tax business environment in China.Taking Shunde Taxation Bureau's innovative reform of tax business environment optimization as an example,this article introduces the practical innovation and promotion of optimizing tax business environment from four aspects:promoting convenience,digitalization,legalization,and intensive reform,in order to provide relevant experience for the optimization of tax business environment in other areas of China.

The Effect of "Pressure-Type" Fiscal Incentives on Industrial Restructuring in China

The optimization and upgrading of industrial structure is the driving force to build a new development pattern and improve the quality and efficiency of economic development.China's"pressure-type"fiscal incentives(PTFIs)are an important perspective from which the law of industrial structure change can be analyzed.Based on the dynamic panel data of 285 cities in China and the behavioral characteristics of local governments,this paper explores the effects of PTFIs on industrial restructuring using the GMM estimation method.It is found that PTFIs are conducive to improving the"quantity"of industrial structure upgrading(ISU),but not conducive to improving the"quality"of ISU or the rationalization of industrial structure(RIS).Mechanism identification reveals that,with PTFIs,local governments influence industrial restructuring mainly by"expanding financial resources with land"(EFRWL)and increasing the intensity of tax collection and management(ITCM).Further discussion reveals that a higher degree of fiscal decentralization and environmental regulation can effectively alleviate the negative impact of PTFIs on industrial restructuring.Accordingly,this paper puts forward some policy recommendations to promote the balanced development of industrial structure,such as improving the institutional conditions and standardizing the behavior of local governments.