Tax structure and corporate tax compliance: evidence from China

This article empirically examines the impact of tax structure on corporate tax compliance using Chinese industrial enterprise database and prefectural data. The results show that relying more on indirect taxes tends to decrease corporate tax compliance, while increasing the ratio of direct taxes of total tax revenues significantly enhances corporate tax compliance. To overcome endogeneity, the robustness is tested using instrumental variables and other robustness checks, such as changing variables and changing time windows. Mechanism analysis shows that it is conducive to reducing the complexity of the tax system, improving the quality of governance, and enhancing taxation efforts. This article examines the impact of tax system on corporate taxation behaviour from the perspective of the tax structure, which also provides microscopic empirical evidence for tax reform in China.