Description:
Abstract: Using the National Taxation Survey data from 2009 to 2015, this paper takes the reform of "replacing business tax with value-added tax" (RBTVT) in China as a quasi-natural experiment to empirically explore the impact of the fiscal pressure caused by the turnover tax reduction on the corporate income tax burden. It attempts to explain the phenomenon that tax reduction is difficult to reduce tax burden from the perspective of fiscal pressure. The results show that large-scale tax reductions will produce a "tax substitution" effect. That is, the greater the tax reduction effect caused by the RBTVT, the greater the motivation of local governments to transfer the fiscal pressure in the form of taxation, This results in a rise in the local corporate income tax burden. With regard to "who will pay tax", this paper indicates that non-state-owned enterprises, small and micro enterprises, and non-RBTVT enterprises are the main bearers of the transfer of local fiscal pressure. With further examination, it has been found that there is an obvious "tax substitution" effect in regions with poor business environments and regions with large government sizes. In the mechanism section, this paper finds that increasing the intensity of tax enforcement, reducing preferential tax rates and exemption of enterprises, and levying excessive tax are the main methods of "tax substitution". According to the extended analysis, enterprises do not bear the fiscal burden. However, they can also pass the pressure on to their employees by reducing the cost of wages and benefits