IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/ijfiec/v28y2023i1p510-527.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does corporate tax planning mitigate financial constraints? Evidence from China

Author

Listed:
  • Jie Sun
  • Lewis Makosa
  • Jinkun Yang
  • Fangyuan Yin
  • Lovemore Sitsha

Abstract

We hypothesize that tax planning behaviour mitigates a firm's financial constraints, and this effect is more pronounced in non‐state‐owned enterprises and big firms compared to their counterparts. We use data for Chinese listed firms during the period 2010–2018 to test the hypotheses, based on both ordinary least squares and fixed‐effect models. The regression results show that tax planning is positively and significantly associated with mitigation of financial constraints, suggesting that cash tax savings are likely to improve firms' financial slack. This effect is stronger for non‐state‐owned enterprises, big firms, non‐political firms and firms in the eastern region of China. Further analyses reveal that, in the long run, tax planning increases firms' financial constraints, supporting Scholes‐Wolfson's point of view of tax planning, that minimizing taxes is not the same as effective tax planning. These results are robust to various tests. Overall, our results suggest that minimizing tax generally produces immediate cash flow benefits and mitigates financial constraints in the short run; however, in the long run, firms should adopt sustainable financing strategies.

Suggested Citation

  • Jie Sun & Lewis Makosa & Jinkun Yang & Fangyuan Yin & Lovemore Sitsha, 2023. "Does corporate tax planning mitigate financial constraints? Evidence from China," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(1), pages 510-527, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:ijfiec:v:28:y:2023:i:1:p:510-527
    DOI: 10.1002/ijfe.2433
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/ijfe.2433
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/ijfe.2433?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chen, Shuping & Chen, Xia & Cheng, Qiang & Shevlin, Terry, 2010. "Are family firms more tax aggressive than non-family firms?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(1), pages 41-61, January.
    2. Sabrina Chi & Shawn X. Huang & Juan Manuel Sanchez, 2017. "CEO Inside Debt Incentives and Corporate Tax Sheltering," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(4), pages 837-876, September.
    3. Zhang Chen & Cheong Kee Cheok & Rajah Rasiah, 2016. "Corporate Tax Avoidance and Performance: Evidence from China's Listed Companies," Institutions and Economies (formerly known as International Journal of Institutions and Economies), Faculty of Economics and Administration, University of Malaya, vol. 8(3), pages 61-83, July.
    4. Marcus Miller & Paul Weller & Lei Zhang, 2002. "Moral Hazard and the US Stock Market: Analysing the "Greenspan Put"," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(478), pages 171-186, March.
    5. Richardson, Grant & Lanis, Roman & Taylor, Grantley, 2015. "Financial distress, outside directors and corporate tax aggressiveness spanning the global financial crisis: An empirical analysis," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 112-129.
    6. Jones, Jj, 1991. "Earnings Management During Import Relief Investigations," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(2), pages 193-228.
    7. Tee, Chwee Ming, 2018. "Political connections and the cost of debt: Re-examining the evidence from Malaysia," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 51-62.
    8. Isin, Adnan Anil, 2018. "Tax avoidance and cost of debt: The case for loan-specific risk mitigation and public debt financing," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 344-378.
    9. Hasan, Iftekhar & Hoi, Chun Keung (Stan) & Wu, Qiang & Zhang, Hao, 2014. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder: The effect of corporate tax avoidance on the cost of bank loans," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(1), pages 109-130.
    10. Myers, Stewart C. & Majluf, Nicholas S., 1984. "Corporate financing and investment decisions when firms have information that investors do not have," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 187-221, June.
    11. Zimmerman, Jerold L., 1983. "Taxes and firm size," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 119-149, April.
    12. Dang, Dandan & Fang, Hongsheng & He, Minyuan, 2019. "Economic policy uncertainty, tax quotas and corporate tax burden: Evidence from China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 1-1.
    13. Lim, Youngdeok, 2011. "Tax avoidance, cost of debt and shareholder activism: Evidence from Korea," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 456-470, February.
    14. Kelvin K. F. Law & Lillian F. Mills, 2015. "Taxes and Financial Constraints: Evidence from Linguistic Cues," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(4), pages 777-819, September.
    15. Slemrod, Joel, 2004. "The Economics of Corporate Tax Selfishness," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 57(4), pages 877-899, December.
    16. Onur Bayar & Fariz Huseynov & Sabuhi Sardarli, 2018. "Corporate Governance, Tax Avoidance, and Financial Constraints," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 47(3), pages 651-677, September.
    17. Stewart C. Myers & Nicholas S. Majluf, 1984. "Corporate Financing and Investment Decisions When Firms Have InformationThat Investors Do Not Have," NBER Working Papers 1396, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2014_003 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Beladi, Hamid & Chao, Chi Chur & Hu, May, 2018. "Does tax avoidance behavior affect bank loan contracts for Chinese listed firms?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 104-116.
    20. Kubick, Thomas R. & Lockhart, G. Brandon, 2017. "Corporate tax aggressiveness and the maturity structure of debt," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 50-57.
    21. Toni M. Whited & Guojun Wu, 2006. "Financial Constraints Risk," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 19(2), pages 531-559.
    22. Graham, John R. & Tucker, Alan L., 2006. "Tax shelters and corporate debt policy," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(3), pages 563-594, September.
    23. Ohlson, Ja, 1980. "Financial Ratios And The Probabilistic Prediction Of Bankruptcy," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(1), pages 109-131.
    24. Zmijewski, Me, 1984. "Methodological Issues Related To The Estimation Of Financial Distress Prediction Models," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22, pages 59-82.
    25. Hanlon, Michelle & Heitzman, Shane, 2010. "A review of tax research," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 127-178, December.
    26. Bradshaw, Mark & Liao, Guanmin & Ma, Mark (Shuai), 2019. "Agency costs and tax planning when the government is a major Shareholder," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 255-277.
    27. Kahle, Kathleen M. & Stulz, René M., 2013. "Access to capital, investment, and the financial crisis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(2), pages 280-299.
    28. Zhang, Qinhong & Dong, Ming & Luo, Jianwen & Segerstedt, Anders, 2014. "Supply chain coordination with trade credit and quantity discount incorporating default risk," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 352-360.
    29. Xiaolu Liu & Honglin Li, 2017. "Financial constraints and the productivity–survival link: evidence from China’s firm-level data," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 26(5), pages 763-779.
    30. Steven N. Kaplan & Luigi Zingales, 1997. "Do Investment-Cash Flow Sensitivities Provide Useful Measures of Financing Constraints?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(1), pages 169-215.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Song, Yunxing & Gong, Yuanyuan & Song, Yan & Chen, Xiaohui, 2024. "Exploring the impact of digital inclusive finance on consumption volatility: Insights from household entrepreneurship and income volatility," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    2. Zhu, Huaijia & Chang, Shiwei & Chen, Bo & Zhu, Huaiqi, 2024. "How does military-civilian integration development influence corporate financial constraints in China? Evidence based on quasi-natural experiments," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 1273-1289.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wang, Changrong & Richardson, Grant & Cao, Yanming, 2024. "Long live the walking dead? Corporate tax avoidance and zombie firms in China," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(3).
    2. Richardson, Grant & Lanis, Roman & Taylor, Grantley, 2015. "Financial distress, outside directors and corporate tax aggressiveness spanning the global financial crisis: An empirical analysis," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 112-129.
    3. Chen, Jie & Mishra, Tapas & Song, Wei & Zhang, Qingjing & Zhang, Zhuang, 2024. "The impact of bank mergers on corporate tax aggressiveness," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    4. Devos, Erik & Rahman, Shofiqur, 2023. "Does labor unemployment insurance affect corporate tax aggressiveness?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    5. Zhou, Fuzhao & Shao, Pei & Xie, Feixue & Huang, Jianning, 2023. "The governance role of lender monitoring: Evidence from Borrowers' tax planning," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    6. Athira, A. & Ramesh, Vishnu K., 2024. "Economic policy uncertainty and tax avoidance: International evidence," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    7. Onur Bayar & Fariz Huseynov & Sabuhi Sardarli, 2018. "Corporate Governance, Tax Avoidance, and Financial Constraints," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 47(3), pages 651-677, September.
    8. Chen, Shenglan & Ma, Hui & Teng, Haimeng & Wu, Qiang, 2022. "Banking liberalization and corporate tax planning: Evidence from natural experiments," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    9. Tao Chen & Sidney Leung & Lingmin Xie, 2021. "Does credit rating conservatism matter for corporate tax avoidance?," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 61(4), pages 5681-5730, December.
    10. Shen, Zhihan & Zhang, Ruipeng & Li, Peigong, 2024. "Local government debt and corporate tax avoidance: Evidence from China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 93(PA), pages 985-1000.
    11. Chaudhry, Neeru, 2021. "Tax aggressiveness and idiosyncratic volatility," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    12. Sánchez-Ballesta, Juan Pedro & Yagüe, José, 2023. "Tax avoidance and the cost of debt for SMEs: Evidence from Spain," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2).
    13. Ke Na & Wenjia Yan, 2022. "Languages and corporate tax avoidance," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 27(1), pages 148-184, March.
    14. Francis, Bill & Teng, Haimeng & Wang, Ying & Wu, Qiang, 2022. "The effect of shareholder-debtholder conflicts on corporate tax aggressiveness: Evidence from dual holders," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    15. Athira, A. & Ramesh, Vishnu K., 2023. "COVID-19 and corporate tax avoidance: International evidence," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(4).
    16. Fangjun Wang & Shuolei Xu & Junqin Sun & Charles P. Cullinan, 2020. "Corporate Tax Avoidance: A Literature Review And Research Agenda," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(4), pages 793-811, September.
    17. Guangyong Lei & Wanwan Wang & Junli Yu & Kam C. Chan, 2022. "Cultural Diversity and Corporate Tax Avoidance: Evidence from Chinese Private Enterprises," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 176(2), pages 357-379, March.
    18. (DJ) Fairhurst, Douglas & Liu, Yanguang & Ni, Xiaoran, 2020. "Employment protection and tax aggressiveness: Evidence from wrongful discharge laws," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    19. Wang, Jiaxin & Chen, Jin & Huang, Xiang & Song, Zilong, 2023. "Principal SOE customers and corporate tax avoidance: Evidence from the government arrears clearance reform," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    20. Kovermann, Jost & Velte, Patrick, 2019. "The impact of corporate governance on corporate tax avoidance—A literature review," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 1-1.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:ijfiec:v:28:y:2023:i:1:p:510-527. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.interscience.wiley.com/jpages/1076-9307/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.