IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_9511.html

How Distortive Are Turnover Taxes? Evidence from Replacing Turnover Tax with VAT

Author

Listed:
  • Jing Xing
  • Katarzyna Anna Bilicka
  • Xipei Hou

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate distortions created by turnover taxes. As a natural experiment, we explore a reform that replaced turnover taxes with value-added taxes for some service industries in China, while the taxation of manufacturing industries remained unchanged. The reform increased sales, R&D investment, and employment for affected service firms, which is primarily driven by outsourcing from downstream manufacturing _rms. We document that smaller and less innovative manufacturing firms outsource more, and reallocation increases the quality of innovation for affected service firms. Our study provides new evidence on the negative impact of turnover taxes imposed on business inputs.

Suggested Citation

  • Jing Xing & Katarzyna Anna Bilicka & Xipei Hou, 2022. "How Distortive Are Turnover Taxes? Evidence from Replacing Turnover Tax with VAT," CESifo Working Paper Series 9511, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9511
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ifo.de/DocDL/cesifo1_wp9511.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Natarajan Balasubramanian & Jagadeesh Sivadasan, 2011. "What Happens When Firms Patent? New Evidence from U.S. Economic Census Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(1), pages 126-146, February.
    2. Michael Carlos Best & Anne Brockmeyer & Henrik Jacobsen Kleven & Johannes Spinnewijn & Mazhar Waseem, 2016. "Erratum: Production versus Revenue Efficiency with Limited Tax Capacity: Theory and Evidence from Pakistan," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(1), pages 303-303.
    3. Ufuk Akcigit & John Grigsby & Tom Nicholas & Stefanie Stantcheva, 2018. "Taxation and Innovation in the 20th Century," NBER Working Papers 24982, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Laura Alfaro & Paola Conconi & Harald Fadinger & Andrew F. Newman, 2016. "Do Prices Determine Vertical Integration?," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, pages 855-888.
    5. Zhao Chen & Zhikuo Liu & Juan Carlos Suárez Serrato & Daniel Yi Xu, 2021. "Notching R&D Investment with Corporate Income Tax Cuts in China," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(7), pages 2065-2100, July.
    6. Enghin Atalay & Ali Horta?su & Chad Syverson, 2014. "Vertical Integration and Input Flows," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(4), pages 1120-1148, April.
    7. Cui, Wei & Hicks, Jeffrey & Xing, Jing, 2022. "Cash on the table? Imperfect take-up of tax incentives and firm investment behavior," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    8. Callaway, Brantly & Sant’Anna, Pedro H.C., 2021. "Difference-in-Differences with multiple time periods," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(2), pages 200-230.
    9. Bloom, Nick & Griffith, Rachel & Van Reenen, John, 2002. "Do R&D tax credits work? Evidence from a panel of countries 1979-1997," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(1), pages 1-31, July.
    10. Youssef Benzarti & Dorian Carloni, 2019. "Who Really Benefits from Consumption Tax Cuts? Evidence from a Large VAT Reform in France," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 38-63, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Garriga, Pablo & Tortarolo, Dario, 2024. "Firms as tax collectors," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 233(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Xing, Jing & Bilicka, Katarzyna & Hou, Xipei & Raei, Sepideh, 2024. "How distortive are turnover taxes? Evidence from China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    2. Andreas Lichter & Max Löffler & Ingo E. Isphording & Thu-Van Nguyen & Felix Poege & Sebastian Siegloch, 2025. "Profit Taxation, R&D Spending, and Innovation," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 432-463, February.
    3. Hansen, Benjamin & Miller, Keaton & Weber, Caroline, 2022. "Vertical integration and production inefficiency in the presence of a gross receipts tax," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    4. Nicholas Bloom & John Van Reenen & Heidi Williams, 2019. "A toolkit of policies to promote innovation," Voprosy Ekonomiki, NP Voprosy Ekonomiki, issue 10.
    5. Chiara Bellucci & Armando Rungi, 2024. "Procompetitive effects of vertical takeovers. Evidence from the European Union," Papers 2411.12412, arXiv.org, revised May 2025.
    6. Knoll, Bodo & Riedel, Nadine & Schwab, Thomas & Todtenhaupt, Maximilian & Voget, Johannes, 2021. "Cross-border effects of R&D tax incentives," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(9).
    7. Lin, Chao & Ma, Kaili & Zhang, Xing, 2025. "Where technology meets tax: The impact of digital tax administration on tax incentive take-up," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 247(C).
    8. Gao, Wenjing & Mao, Jie & Shi, Xinzheng, 2024. "Do firms benefit from public information services: Evidence from a tax hotline program in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    9. Liu, Lihua & Cao, Lele & Cao, Yuqiang & Lu, Meiting & Shan, Yaowen, 2024. "VAT credit refunds and firm productivity: Evidence from China's VAT reform," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    10. Feld, Lars P. & Schmidt, Christoph M. & Schnabel, Isabel & Truger, Achim & Wieland, Volker, 2019. "Den Strukturwandel meistern. Jahresgutachten 2019/20 [Dealing with Structural Change. Annual Report 2019/20]," Annual Economic Reports / Jahresgutachten, German Council of Economic Experts / Sachverständigenrat zur Begutachtung der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung, volume 127, number 201920.
    11. Andreas Teichgraeber & John Van Reenen, 2022. "A policy toolkit to increase research and innovation in the European Union," POID Working Papers 025, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    12. Wenyan Sun & Kedong Yin & Zhe Liu, 2021. "Tax Incentives, R&D Manipulation, and Corporate Innovation Performance: Evidence from Listed Companies in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-16, October.
    13. Christopher Hansman & Jonas Hjort & Gianmarco León-Ciliotta & Matthieu Teachout, 2020. "Vertical Integration, Supplier Behavior, and Quality Upgrading among Exporters," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(9), pages 3570-3625.
    14. Masanori ORIHARA & Takafumi SUZUKI, 2021. "Windfalls? Costs and Benefits of Investment Tax Incentives due to Financial Constraints," Discussion papers 21087, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    15. Shuai Wang & Fayyaz Ahmad & Yanlong Li & Nabila Abid & Abbas Ali Chandio & Abdul Rehman, 2022. "The Impact of Industrial Subsidies and Enterprise Innovation on Enterprise Performance: Evidence from Listed Chinese Manufacturing Companies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-17, April.
    16. Sandro Montresor & Francesco Quatraro, 2015. "Key Enabling Technologies and Smart Specialization Strategies. European Regional Evidence from patent data," JRC Working Papers on Corporate R&D and Innovation 2015-05, Joint Research Centre.
    17. Goeyvaerts, Geert, 2023. "Reconstructing cities: Stimulating redevelopment through the tax code," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    18. Ufuk Akcigit & William Kerr, 2015. "Growth through Heterogeneous Innovation, Second Version," PIER Working Paper Archive 15-020, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised 25 Mar 2015.
    19. Quan, Yingyue, 2025. "Firm sorting, clustering, and vertical disintegration: Evidence from China," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    20. Harju, Jarkko & Kosonen, Tuomas & Skans, Oskar Nordström, 2018. "Firm types, price-setting strategies, and consumption-tax incidence," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 48-72.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • H25 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Business Taxes and Subsidies
    • H26 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Tax Evasion and Avoidance
    • O32 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Management of Technological Innovation and R&D
    • D25 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Intertemporal Firm Choice: Investment, Capacity, and Financing

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9511. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.