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Taking advantage of the agency conflicts between controlling shareholders and minority shareholders and the weak corporate governance in a transition economy, we investigate the relationship between tax avoidance (proxied by effective tax rates) and tunneling (proxied by related-party lending) from a principal-principal agency perspective. We find that corporate tax avoidance is positively associated with tunneling after controlling for firm characteristics, corporate governance, and institutional factors that affect tunneling. This relationship is more pronounced for firms with cash shortages and in periods with relatively weak investor protection. In addition, the value-enhancing implications of tax avoidance are reduced for firms in which tax avoidance is highly correlated with tunneling. By demonstrating the existence of tunneling-related tax avoidance and its economic consequences, this study sheds light on the emerging agency perspective on tax avoidance. JEL Classifications: G18; H20; M41.

Local governments play dual, but conflicting, roles in China's tax system. That is, they are both tax collectors and controlling shareholders of firms subject to tax payments. We investigate how local governments balance their tax collection and tax avoidance incentives. We find that the conflicts between central and local governments arising from the 2002 tax sharing reform have led to more tax avoidance by local government-controlled firms, particularly when the local government's ownership percentage of the firms is higher than the tax sharing ratio. We also find evidence that the overall level of tax avoidance by local government-controlled firms in a region is positively associated with local fiscal deficits. As a high level of government ownership of corporations and intergovernmental tax sharing are common phenomena in many transitional economies, this study offers valuable insights into how the dual roles played by local governments affect tax policy enforcement in these economies. JEL Classifications: H26; H71; M40; G38.

Prior studies document that book-tax differences (BTDs) reflect divergent reporting rules for book and tax purposes, and contain information about earnings management and tax planning. In this paper, we investigate whether the regulatory and opportunistic information impounded in BTDs differentially influences earnings persistence and the earnings-returns relation. Using BTD data from China, we separate BTDs into normal BTDs (NBTDs) and abnormal BTDs (ABTDs). NBTDs are more likely driven by regulatory differences between accounting and tax rules and ABTDs are more likely driven by earnings and tax management activities. We find that firms with large positive and negative ABTDs (NBTDs) exhibit less earnings persistence compared to firms with small ABTDs (NBTDs). However, the level of earnings persistence for large unsigned ABTD firms is significantly lower than it is for large unsigned NBTD firms. While large unsigned NBTDs appear to enhance the earnings-returns relation, we find no evidence that large unsigned ABTDs affect the earningsreturns relation. Overall, the results suggest that the differing components of BTDs have differential implications for earnings quality. Additional tests show that ABTDs and NBTDs can provide incremental information about earnings persistence beyond the information in discretionary accruals and total accruals, suggesting that the investigation of BTDs adds value to financial analysis.

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To encourage economic development in specific regions and industries, the Chinese Central and local governments offer a series of corporate income tax incentives (tax exemptions, reduced tax rates, tax holidays, and tax refunds). In China, parent and subsidiary companies are consolidated for financial reporting, but not for tax purposes. We take advantage of a unique disclosure in the tax footnotes of Chinese listed firms to examine income shifting among consolidated group members in response to these incentives. We find that intangible-intensive groups (“firms”), and firms concerned with meeting minimum earnings thresholds to issue equity, shift greater amounts of income. We find no evidence that high concentrations of either Central or local government ownership affect the level of income shifting.