Corporate Social Responsibility and Tax Avoidance: Evidence from the 2018 Tax Reform in Taiwan

Abstract

This paper examines the relation between corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance and corporate tax avoidance in the context of Taiwan’s change from an imputation to classical tax system in 2018. Using a sample of 1,277 listed firms from 2015 to 2020, I determine that, after 2018, firms engage in tax avoidance to a greater extent. Furthermore, firms that perform well in CSR are less likely to engage in tax avoidance. After the 2018 legislative change, firms with high CSR performance are less likely to engage in tax avoidance to a greater extent. These results are consistent with the stakeholder theory and withstand a battery of robustness checks.