Tax Enforcement,Financing Constraints,and Corporate Innovation

R&D is an important source of enterprises’ own competitiveness in the market economy,and it is also the fundamental force and source for a country to enhance its competitiveness in the international market and achieve economic growth.However,due to the existence of corporate evasion,tax avoidance and earnings management,the information transparency between enterprises and the market is low,which increases the financing constraints of enterprises and seriously inhibits the source of R&D funds of enterprises.The Golden Tax Phase Ⅲ project in China’s tax informatization construction project has greatly enhanced the government’s ability to collect and manage taxation,exerted its "governance effect" on enterprises,and provided the possibility to solve this problem.Therefore,it is very meaningful to study the impact of tax collection and management on enterprises’ R&D investment.At the theoretical level,this paper analyzes and finds that enterprise R&D activities are often subject to strong financial constraints due to large investment and long cycle.However,the improvement of the tax authority’s tax collection capacity brought about by the Golden Tax Phase Ⅲ Project can exert the "governance effect" on enterprises,improve the quality of enterprise information disclosure,reduce information asymmetry,and solve the problem of financing constraints on enterprise R&D investment to a certain extent,which will ultimately help promote enterprise R&D investment.At the empirical level,this paper uses the Golden Tax Phase Ⅲ Project as an agent for the change of tax collection and management intensity,sets dummy variables,and establishes a double difference model for regression testing.In terms of samples,this paper uses the data of non-financial and non-ST listed companies in China from 2010 to 2019 to examine the impact of tax collection and management on enterprises’ R&D investment,and tests the robustness of the core conclusions from four aspects: parallel trend test,placebo test,replacement of explanatory variables and exclusion of the impact of the "VAT to VAT" policy,and finally tests the possible heterogeneity of different samples.The study finds that: First,on the whole,the increase in tax collection and management intensity has significantly promoted the R&D investment of enterprises.Second,in terms of channel mechanism,tax collection and management can promote the R&D investment of enterprises by alleviating the financing constraints of enterprises,and the alleviation of corporate financing constraints is mainly because tax collection and management improves the quality of information disclosure of enterprises,thereby improving the information transparency between enterprises and the market.Third,in terms of the nature of property rights,after the launch of the Golden Tax Phase Ⅲ Project,the R&D investment of non-state-owned enterprises has increased significantly,that is,compared with state-owned enterprises,the Golden Tax Phase Ⅲ Project has a greater role in promoting the R&D investment of non-state-owned enterprises;In terms of collection and management agencies,after the launch of the Golden Tax Phase Ⅲ Project,the R&D investment of enterprises subject to the collection and management of the local tax bureau has increased significantly,that is,compared with the collection and management enterprises of the State Taxation Bureau,the Golden Tax Phase Ⅲ Project has a greater role in promoting the R&D investment of enterprises collected and managed by the local tax bureau.In terms of whether there is political connection,after the launch of the Golden Tax Phase Ⅲ Project,the R&D investment of non-politically affiliated enterprises has increased significantly,that is,compared with politically connected enterprises,the Golden Tax Phase Ⅲ Project has a greater role in promoting the R&D investment of non-politically affiliated enterprises.In terms of the degree of competition in the industry in which the enterprise is located,after the launch of the third phase of the Golden Tax,the R&D investment of enterprises in highly competitive industries has increased significantly,that is,compared with enterprises in industries with low competition,the third phase of the Golden Tax has a greater role in promoting the R&D investment of enterprises in industries with high competition.Finally,based on the above results,this paper draws the following policy enlightenment: First,the government should vigorously publicize the impact of tax collection and management on the good aspects of enterprises,so that they gradually realize the positive role of tax collection and management as an external regulatory force on corporate governance,actively cooperate with the tax authorities in their tax collection work from the mentality and behavior,and improve the quality of information disclosure.This is not only conducive to the enjoyment of various preferential tax policies,but also conducive to easing its own financing constraints,thereby increasing its R&D investment,increasing the long-term value of enterprises,gradually establishing a positive image of the tax authorities in this process,and building a new harmonious government-enterprise relationship of mutual benefit and win-win.Second,when formulating and implementing relevant policies,the government should strengthen the focus on non-state-owned and non-politically connected enterprises with financing difficulties based on the real information of enterprises obtained by tax authorities,so as to promote the active development of the private economy and provide the possibility for the increase of regional long-term tax revenue.Third,according to the governance role played by the Golden Tax Phase Ⅲ Project,it provides a theoretical basis and empirical evidence for the construction of the Golden Tax Phase IV Project of the government tax authorities.The strengthening of tax collection and management capacity can also solve the problem of loosening tax collection and management brought about by local governments’ horizontal competition,promote enterprises in highly competitive industries with stronger research engines to increase R&D investment.