Research On The Relationship Between Tax Avoidance And Comparability Of Accounting Information

The number of listed companies in China has already exceeded 4,000 and these companies have the characteristics of large scale,stable operation and heavy tax burden.Therefore,some listed companies in China is searching for methods to avoid tax.For public companies,the comparability of accounting information affects the stakeholders' understanding of company's operating status and financial status,so it is important for us to studies the correlation between the tax avoidance of listed companies and the comparability of accounting information.The content of this paper mainly includes three aspects.Firstly,this paper studies how corporate tax avoidance affects the comparability of accounting information by the empirical test;Secondly,this paper study from a macro perspective whether the relationship between tax avoidance and comparability of accounting information is regulated by economic policies.These economic policies includes reform of value added tax(VAT)and short selling policy.Thirdly,this paper studies from a micro perspective how corporate internal governance influences the relationship between corporate tax avoidance and the comparability of accounting information,in other words,the relationship between tax avoidance and the comparability of accounting information may be affects by the number of independent directors or institutional shareholders.This paper selects the data of China's A-share listed companies from 2000 to 2017 as the initial sample,and draws the following conclusions through empirical research.Firstly,the tax avoidance activities carried out by enterprises will cause the decrease of comparability of accounting information between different companies;Secondly,the implementation of the new VAT policy can weaken the negative impact of corporate tax avoidance on the comparability of accounting information,and the relaxation of short-selling control can reduce the negative impact of corporate tax avoidance on the comparability of accounting information;Thirdly,the greater the proportion of independent directors,the weaker the effect of corporate tax avoidance on the comparability of accounting information,and the greater the proportion of institutional investors,the weaker the effect of corporate tax avoidance on the comparability of accounting information.This paper mainly studies the relationship of corporate tax avoidance and the comparability of accounting information.However,it's possible that the improvement of the comparability can upgrade the quality of accounting information,and then increase the cost of tax avoidance which may restrain the extent of corporate tax avoidance.In order to solve the possible endogenous problems,this paper chooses the following three methods to alleviate the possible endogenousness.The first method is to use the geographic distance between the company and the tax bureau as a tool variable for corporate tax avoidance.The second method is to use the national income tax reform in 2008 as a natural event for less endogenous errors.The third method is to conduct two-stage regression process by using the lagging fiscal-year tax avoidance as explanatory variable.