How digital capabilities affect tax planning: The internal information environment

IF 6.9 2区经济学 Q1 BUSINESS, FINANCE

Finance Research Letters Pub Date : 2026-03-01 Epub Date: 2026-01-20 DOI:10.1016/j.frl.2026.109540

Liping Xu, Lirong Zhang

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Abstract

The rapid development of the digital economy has profoundly reshaped firms’ operational decisions and financial behaviors, yet how corporate digital transformation affects tax planning remains insufficiently explored. Using a sample of Chinese A-share nonfinancial listed firms from 2009 to 2023, this study analyses digital transformation’s effect on corporate tax planning efficiency, focusing on the mediating role of the internal information environment. The results show that digital transformation significantly enhances tax planning efficiency, and this conclusion remains robust across robustness and endogeneity tests. Mechanism analyses indicate that digital transformation improves the internal information environment by increasing earnings forecast accuracy and accelerating financial information disclosure, strengthening firms’ tax planning capabilities. Heterogeneity analyses further reveal that this effect is greater in firms with stronger internal governance, greater external monitoring and more advanced regional digital economic development and industrial agglomeration. Furthermore, digital transformation promotes firms’ total factor productivity by improving tax planning efficiency. This study provides new empirical evidence on the financial governance effects of digital transformation with essential policy and managerial implications.

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数字能力如何影响税务筹划：内部信息环境

数字经济的快速发展深刻地重塑了企业的经营决策和财务行为，但企业数字化转型如何影响税收筹划仍未得到充分探讨。本文以2009 - 2023年中国a股非金融类上市公司为样本，分析了数字化转型对企业税收筹划效率的影响，重点研究了内部信息环境的中介作用。结果表明，数字化转型显著提高了税收筹划效率，并且在稳健性和内生性检验中，这一结论仍然是稳健的。机制分析表明，数字化转型通过提高盈余预测准确性、加速财务信息披露、增强企业税收筹划能力等方面改善了企业内部信息环境。异质性分析进一步表明，内部治理水平越高、外部监督力度越大、区域数字经济发展水平越高、产业集聚程度越高的企业，这种效应越显著。此外，数字化转型通过提高税收筹划效率来提高企业的全要素生产率。本研究为数字化转型的财务治理效应提供了新的实证证据，具有重要的政策和管理意义。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Finance Research Letters BUSINESS, FINANCE-

CiteScore

11.10

自引率

14.40%

发文量

863

期刊介绍： Finance Research Letters welcomes submissions across all areas of finance, aiming for rapid publication of significant new findings. The journal particularly encourages papers that provide insight into the replicability of established results, examine the cross-national applicability of previous findings, challenge existing methodologies, or demonstrate methodological contingencies. Papers are invited in the following areas: Actuarial studies Alternative investments Asset Pricing Bankruptcy and liquidation Banks and other Depository Institutions Behavioral and experimental finance Bibliometric and Scientometric studies of finance Capital budgeting and corporate investment Capital markets and accounting Capital structure and payout policy Commodities Contagion, crises and interdependence Corporate governance Credit and fixed income markets and instruments Derivatives Emerging markets Energy Finance and Energy Markets Financial Econometrics Financial History Financial intermediation and money markets Financial markets and marketplaces Financial Mathematics and Econophysics Financial Regulation and Law Forecasting Frontier market studies International Finance Market efficiency, event studies Mergers, acquisitions and the market for corporate control Micro Finance Institutions Microstructure Non-bank Financial Institutions Personal Finance Portfolio choice and investing Real estate finance and investing Risk SME, Family and Entrepreneurial Finance