Effectiveness of Tax Policies in Corporate Restructuring: Evidence from China

ABSTRACT

As an international practice, tax policies generally provide the required support to corporate restructuring. Accordingly, we used the regression discontinuity approach to analyze and evaluate the effectiveness of China’s tax policies in corporate restructuring in recent years. The study results revealed that developing policies in a targeted manner can promote corporate restructuring. Furthermore, the development of policies in China in 2014 has resulted in a compound effect. Therefore, the Chinese government may consider further improving the tax support for corporate restructuring through the following strategies: lowering the threshold for applying restructuring tax incentives, improving the design of restructuring tax policies, improving tax services, and strengthening tax supervision of high-risk restructuring issues.

KEYWORDS:

• Corporate restructuring
• tax policy
• regression discontinuity

JEL:

• G34
• G38
• H21

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. As many companies have undergone several M&As in the same year, so the final samples are 95139.

2. Announcement of the State Taxation Administration of the PRC on Issues Concerning the Collection and Administration of Company Income Tax on the Transfer of Assets (Equity) (No. 40 of 2015), Announcement on Certain Issues Concerning the Collection and Administration of Company Income Tax on Corporate Restructuring (Announcement of the State Taxation Administration of the PRC, No. 48 of 2015).