Corporate tax evasion: Evidence from international trade
研究企业如何通过低报进出口额来降低应税利润、逃避企业所得税，发现该渠道对报告应税利润的弹性为0.24，且跨国公司和影子经济大的国家不利用此渠道。
This paper investigates how firms misreport their imports and exports to lower their reported taxable profits and evade corporate income taxes (CIT), which I call the trade evasion channel . Based on correlations between tax rates and mirror statistics of trade flows between countries at the product level, I find evidence suggesting that firms under-report exports (sales) and imports (costs) simultaneously to lower reported taxable profits while maintaining consistent income statements. For a representative firm, the resulting elasticity of reported taxable profits is 0.24, which suggests that the trade evasion channel is quantitatively important. Multinational firms do not exploit this channel, nor do firms in countries with a large informal economy, where other evasion options are available.