Can VAT-cut Encourage Firms'Investment in Real Entities?
Tax policy is an important tool for a government's management on macroeconomic.Lowering the effective rate of value-added tax(VAT)is widely recognized as a good method to promote the willingness of enterprises to invest in physical assets,as the financial burden on them is alleviated.However,from the data of listed companies in China during the years between 2000 and 2019,it seems that the lowering of the effective rate of VAT is often followed by a decreasing,not increasing as expect,rate of investment in fixed assets.With the data of twenty years,this paper takes the times of exposure to tax reforms as an instrumental variable and uses the Two-Stage Least Squares(2SLS)estimation method to explore the impact of the decline in the effective rate of VAT on the fixed asset investment rate of enterprises.Contrary to what is commonly expected,after controlling the rate of return on fixed assets and rate of return on financial assets,the decline in the effective rate of VAT do not consistently result in increased investments in fixed assets.Those firms tends to invest the funds raised from the tax reduction into other areas such as financial asset investment.Specifically,the decline in the effective VAT rate creates a significant negative incentive for enterprises'fixed asset investment,while it shows a positive incentive for financial asset investment.The conclusion still holds under a variety of robustness tests such as replacing the explanatory variables,replacing the control variables,adding fixed effects and adjusting the time interval.Firms'utilization rate of production capacities is a key factor influencing their investment behavior.Underutilization of production capacities suppresses the marginal returns to firms'investment in fixed assets.This can make it uneconomic to expand physical(fixed asset)investment with no marginal returns and even further reduce the future utilization rate of production capacities.As a result,even if the cost of fixed investment falls with the decline in the tax rate on production,firms will have no incentive to invest in fixed assets and will instead invest in financial assets,including cash.On the other hand,when a company runs at high utilization rate of production capacities,they are more likely to invest in new physical assets.The analysis of the moderating effect shows that when the utilization rate of the firms'production capacities is high,the negative incentives for firms to invest in fixed assets from a reduction in the effective VAT rate are correspondingly weaker,the positive incentives are stronger,and firms are more likely to utilize the additional funds from the tax reduction to engage in real investment.The research in this paper reveals the conditions required for tax cuts to promote real investment by enterprises,and provides policy recommendations to promote the economy to"move from the virtual to the real".According to the logic of this paper,if a tax reduction policy wants to promote enterprises to expand real investment,it fundamentally relies on improving the attractiveness of investment in real economy for enterprises compared with investment in financial assets,so that the lowering of the tax burden would dominate in the positive incentives for enterprises to engage in real investment.In terms of policy,the government needs to take into account both production(fixed asset investment)and asset(financial investment)aspects.First,the"Supply-side Structural Reform"should be continued to increase the utilization of enterprises'production capacities.Second,by the"Demand-side Management",a new development pattern with domestic and international"dual circulation"would be built,which would also improve the utilization rate of production capacities.As for the domestic demand,after the proportion of residents'income in the distribution of national income is raised and the social security system is improved,the consumer demand would be increased.As for the external demand,the"opening up"to the outside world should be continuely expanded,and the"One Belt One Road"should be built with high quality.This would drive more domestic enterprises to go abroad,export their production capacities,then increase the utilization rate of their production capacities.Finally,the expansionary monetary policy or unlimited quantitive easing policy should not be used to avoid the unilateral general rise in financial assets,which would attract the funds of enterprises and residents from the real economy to the monetary or virtual economy.
万方数据
维普
