The effects of tax incentives, financial performance and corporate social responsibility on Chinese a-listed companies

This study studies the relationship between tax incentives, financial performance and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). In order to encourage the development of corporate CSR, the Chinese government has carried out a series of tax reforms. The purpose of tax reform is to stimulate the development of CSR by reducing the tax burden on enterprises. Taking China's A-share listed companies from 2008 to 2018 as samples, this study uses the intermediary detection model and takes financial performance as the intermediary variable to test the direct and indirect effects of direct tax incentives and indirect tax incentives on the CSR of the sample companies. The results show that the direct tax incentive has a significant direct incentive effect on the CSR of the whole sample of firms, and the mediating effect of financial performance is significant. It is found that the mediating effect of financial performance is particularly significant in state-owned enterprises and non-manufacturing enterprises. However, indirect tax incentives only have significant CSR incentives for nonmanufacturing enterprises, and the mediating effect of financial performance is significant. Further, incentive effect on state-owned enterprises, non-state-owned enterprises and manufacturing enterprises are not significant. In order to improve the incentive effect of tax policies on CSR, this study puts forward suggestions from two aspects: perfecting government policies and improving enterprises' self-construction.