Does Corporate Social Responsibility Influence Corporate Tax Avoidance of Chinese Listed Companies?

M.A. Gulzar, Jacob Cherian, Muhammad Safdar Sial, Alina Badulescu, Phung Anh Thu, Daniel Badulescu and Nguyen Vinh Khuong
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M.A. Gulzar: School of Business, Zhejiang University City College, Hangzhou 310015, China; Waikato Management School, The University of Waikato, Hamilton 3240, New Zealand
Jacob Cherian: College of Business, Abu Dhabi University, P.O. Box 59911 Abu Dhabi, UAE
Muhammad Safdar Sial: Department of Management Sciences, COMSATS University Islamabad (CUI), Islamabad 44000, Pakistan
Phung Anh Thu: Faculty of Finance and Accounting, Nguyen Tat Thanh University, Ho Chi Minh City 700000, Vietnam
Nguyen Vinh Khuong: Faculty of Accounting and Auditing, University of Economics and Law, VNU-HCM, Ho Chi Minh City 700000, Vietnam

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 12, 1-12

Abstract: The primary objective of this paper is to empirically examine whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) influences corporate tax avoidance (CTA) of Chinese listed companies. The study is based on a sample of 3481 firm-year observations from 2009 to 2015 using CSR ratings from the Rankins (RKS) corporate social responsibility ratings agency in China, and all financial data extracted from the China Stock Market and Accounting Research (CSMAR). The authors foundthat CSR is negatively related to the current and cash effective tax rate (proxies of corporate tax avoidance), suggesting that responsible firms are more involved in tax avoidance as compared to less responsible firms. Their findings are robust against different control variables. Additionally, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the paper is one of the first to document an empirical association between CSR and corporate tax avoidance of Chinese listed companies.

Keywords: corporate social responsibility; corporate tax avoidance; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

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