Digital Finance, Financing Dilemma and Corporate Tax Avoidance——Empirical Evidence From A-Share Listed Companies in China

The rapid development of digital finance is breaking the service boundaries of traditional finance and alleviating the corporate financing dilemma, thereby affecting the behavioral decisions of micro-enterprises. In this study, we match the 2011 to 2019 municipal data of Peking University’s digital financial inclusion with the data of Chinese listed enterprises and test the impact of digital finance on corporate tax avoidance and its mechanism of action using fixed-effects and mediated-effects models. The study reveals that digital finance has the ability to effectively prevent corporate tax avoidance. It possesses structural attributes such as the extent of usage, complemented by the extent of coverage and level of digitalization. By alleviating financing constraints and reducing financing costs, digital finance can inhibit corporate tax avoidance mainly. In addition, digital finance more clearly inhibits the tax-avoidance practice of enterprises in areas with poor financial resource endowments, non-state enterprises, areas with a higher degree of corruption, and areas with smaller-scale informal economies. This study enhances comprehension of the micro-mechanism by which digital finance impacts corporate tax evasion from the perspective of the financing dilemma, enriches the research on the correlation between financial development and corporate tax avoidance. It offers valuable insights for accelerating the advancement of digital finance and maximizing the deployment of financial resources.