| Corporate tax avoidance and corporate social responsibility are the popular topic in academic. Foreign researchers started to explore the relationship between corporate social responsibility and tax avoidance recently. In China, corporate social responsibility has experienced a high development within the five years, thanks for the efforts made by government and social organizations. From2008to2014October, the amount of social responsibility reports has increased more than10times, from169to2240. The scores of corporate social responsibility made by special ranking companies have also experienced a steadily increase. On the other hand, China’s tax revenue also have increased year by year according to the data collected by National Tax Bureau, which indicates an increase of the tax payment awareness of our corporates. Then, is the tax increase associated with the development of corporates social responsibility? This paper will explore the association between corporate social responsibility and corporate tax avoidance.This paper select data of the Chinese A-share listed companies in2008-2012on corporate social responsibility and financial situation, and examine the affection of corporate social responsibility on tax avoidance behaviors by theories analysis and empirical research. As a result, I find:the higher the score of the social responsibility, the lower the measures of tax avoidance. This indicates a corporation who takes more and better responsibility, will reduce its extent of tax avoidance. In addition, different from western countries, some of corporates in china was forced to disclose social responsibility information, while others disclose it voluntarily. So I examined the relationship between social responsibility and tax avoidance by dividing the corporates into two groups. As I find in this paper, the negative relationship between social responsibility and tax avoidance only occur in the latter group. Similarly, I also examine the effect of ownership of corporates on the relationship of corporate social responsibility and tax avoidance behaviors, then I find the negative relationship are more significant in the non-state-owned companies.This paper indicates social responsibility promotes the corporates tax payment awareness. Corporates’ taking social responsibility is consistent with stakeholder theory, social responsibility has become a part of the corporates’culture, instead of just a method of risk management. This conclusion will provide a powerful motivation of promoting the development of social responsibility, and give suggestions about the regulations of corporates social responsibility. Besides, this also contributes to the tax regulations by which have a higher likelihood to take more tax avoidance behaviors. |
