The Relationship Between Equity Ownership Structure and Tax Aggressiveness of Listed Companies

From the perspective of equity structure, this paper selects the data of Chinese listed companies from 2008 to 2012 and studies the impact of both the equity holders' identity structure and ownership concentration of listed companies on the companies' tax aggressiveness. The study finds that equity holders' identity structure is significantly associated with tax aggressiveness, and there is a positive correlation between ownership concentration and tax aggressiveness. The study also finds that the state-owned equity shareholding proportion is positively related to tax aggressiveness, but the manager ownership shareholding proportion isn't. And it suggests that companies could reduce the state-owned equity shareholding proportion and provide managers for shareholding to encourage managers to fight for the interests of company and reduce their unreasonable tax planning behavior. This paper contributes to the progress of equity structure of listed companies and the study of the agency costs and the tax planning.