Corporate Tax Contribution and Green Transformation: The Hidden Cost of Environmental Governance

Do enterprises with high tax contributions exhibit green transformation inertia due to the alignment of government and enterprise interests? Using data from the Chinese A-share market, this paper finds that high tax contributions significantly inhibit corporate green transformation. The mechanism lies in the fact that local governments implement inclusive regulation for high-tax-contribution enterprises, reducing their environmental compliance pressure and cutting environmental protection investment; at the same time, the halo effect of tax contributions provides a cover for enterprises’ low-quality environmental information disclosure. Exclusion analysis shows that financing constraints are not a limiting factor. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the above effects are more prominent in samples with close government–enterprise connections, fierce industry competition, and loose local environmental regulations. Economic consequences show that insufficient green transformation caused by high tax contributions ultimately damages enterprises’ environmental performance and long-term sustainable development capabilities, and significantly increases stock price crash risk. Optimizing internal management and external supervision within enterprises can help mitigate this negative effect. This paper reveals the hidden obstacles to corporate green transformation under the symbiosis of government and enterprise interests, providing a new perspective for understanding the complexity of environmental governance.