Currently, expanding “effective investment” has become a priority
for the government. In this context, studying and analyzing how to stimulate
enterprises’ willingness to invest and expand effective enterprise investment
through external policies is of great practical significance for promoting the high
quality development of both enterprises and the economy. The investment
friction theory suggests that factors such as fixed costs, transaction costs, and
adjustment costs faced by enterprises can restrict their investment decisions and
hinder the achievement of investment goals. Under China's unique fiscal and
taxation system, the government has both the motivation and the ability to
intervene in the economic development of its jurisdiction. The quality of the local
business environment determines the flow and agglomeration of essential
resources, which significantly affects the development quality of enterprises in
the region. Focusing on the tax domain, and while deepening tax reform, tax
authorities have begun to address issues such as the high costs of tax compliance
for enterprises and low levels of tax compliance. To tackle this problem, since
2013, the country has issued a series of policy regulations aimed at optimizing
the tax business environment. These reforms address multiple aspects, including
the tax system, policies, and tax administration, with the goal of building a tax
ecosystem that prioritizes the core interests of taxpayers.
The “Decentralization, Regulation, and Service” reform of the tax system
impacts enterprise effective investment through three aspects: “streamlining
administration and delegating power”“combining decentralization with
regulation” and “optimizing services”. Firstly, through “streamlining
administration and delegating power”, the tax authorities have simplified tax
related approvals and procedures, reducing the interference of government
approval processes in enterprise investment activities. This has significantly
lowered institutional transaction costs for enterprises, alleviated cash flow
pressures, granted enterprises greater investment autonomy, and enhanced market
regulation, thereby aligning investments more closely with company strategies
and market demands. Secondly, by “combining decentralization with regulation”,
barriers between various departments have been dismantled, shifting from post
event crackdowns to preventive measures and increased tax supervision.
Although heightened supervision may lead to short-term increases in tax burdens
for some enterprises, which could reduce their willingness to invest, in the long
run, a fair and just tax business environment will diminish rent-seeking behavior
and promote better resource allocation, thereby enhancing enterprise investment
expectations. Thirdly, through “optimizing services”, the tax authorities have
developed targeted tax service plans for different types of enterprises, ensuring
that tax incentives are effectively translated into business benefits. This approach
meets the cash flow needs of enterprises and provides financial support for
expanding effective investment. Additionally, the tax authorities have improved
service quality and guided enterprises in tax-related matters. In conclusion, the
“Decentralization, Regulation, and Service” reform of the tax system can liberate
enterprises by optimizing the tax business environment, motivating them to
expand effective investment in terms of both capacity and willingness. To verify
this hypothesis, this paper analyzes A-share company data from 2012 to 2022,
using the 2017 and 2018 reform as quasi-natural experiments. A multi-period
difference-in-differences model is constructed to empirically test the impact and
mechanisms of the optimized tax business environment on effective enterprise
investment.
Compared to existing literature, this paper makes the following marginal
contributions: Firstly, it enriches the research on the tax business environment.
While numerous scholars have studied the impact of the business environment on
micro-enterprises, very few have focused specifically on the tax domain. This
paper clarifies how optimizing the tax business environment influences enterprise
investment behavior from a tax perspective, thereby expanding and enriching the
current body of research. Secondly, this paper emphasizes effective investment
and considers both the quantity and quality of investment. Merely requiring
enterprises to continuously expand their investment scale may not necessarily
benefit high-quality enterprise development. It is equally important to focus on
investment efficiency and address issues of underinvestment and overinvestment.
This paper empirically tests the impact and mechanisms of optimizing the tax
business environment on both the scale and efficiency of enterprise investment,
and in its expanded analysis, examines whether this optimization can genuinely
promote high-quality enterprise development. Thirdly, this paper utilizes the
“Decentralization, Regulation, and Service” reform of the tax system as a quasi
natural experiment, employing a multi-period DID method to analyze the impact
of optimizing the tax business environment on enterprise investment. This
approach helps alleviate potential endogeneity issues and provides valuable
insights for optimizing the tax business environment, stimulating enterprise
investment, and promoting the high-quality development of both enterprises and
the economy.
The research conclusions of this paper are as follows: Firstly, compared to non
pilot areas, the scale and efficiency of investment by enterprises in pilot areas
have significantly improved, indicating that the optimization of the tax business
environment is conducive to increasing both the quantity and quality of
enterprise investment. These results remain robust after a series of tests.
Secondly, through mechanism testing, it is found that the optimization of the tax
business environment primarily expands the scale of enterprise investment by
reducing financing constraints and enhances investment efficiency by curtailing
managerial rent-seeking behavior. Thirdly, heterogeneity testing reveals that the
policy effect is more pronounced in regions with strong tax collection and
management, low levels of marketization, as well as among large-scale
enterprises and non-state-owned enterprises. Fourthly, in the expanded analysis,
it is found that optimizing the tax business environment not only expands
effective investment but also improves total factor productivity and promotes
high-quality development for enterprises. Based on these conclusions, the the
“Decentralization, Regulation, and Service” reform of the tax system has proven
effective and can be gradually implemented nationwide. Finally, this paper offers
policy recommendations for building a favorable tax business environment,
focusing on promoting tax legalization, modernizing services, and enhancing
informatization in tax collection and management.