Many developing economies use tax holidays to attract foreign investment by providing a limited period of tax exemptions and reductions for qualified investors. This paper investigates the effect of tax holidays on foreign investors' tax noncompliance behavior in China's developing economy. We measure noncompliance in terms of tax audit adjustments the Chinese tax authorities require in response to avoidance and evasion. The results indicate that a company's tax-holiday position affects noncompliance. Companies are least compliant before entering a tax holiday, and most compliant while in a tax-exemption period. In addition, domestic market-oriented companies, service-oriented companies, and joint ventures are less compliant than export-oriented companies, manufacturing-oriented companies, and wholly foreign-owned enterprises, respectively. Our evidence is relevant to policymakers designing tax incentives to attract foreign investors. Our evidence on noncompliance should also help tax authorities and field auditors plan more effective and efficient tax audits. In addition, the results should provide researchers an interesting perspective to study the effect of tax-rate incentives on corporate tax noncompliance.

Local governments play dual, but conflicting, roles in China's tax system. That is, they are both tax collectors and controlling shareholders of firms subject to tax payments. We investigate how local governments balance their tax collection and tax avoidance incentives. We find that the conflicts between central and local governments arising from the 2002 tax sharing reform have led to more tax avoidance by local government-controlled firms, particularly when the local government's ownership percentage of the firms is higher than the tax sharing ratio. We also find evidence that the overall level of tax avoidance by local government-controlled firms in a region is positively associated with local fiscal deficits. As a high level of government ownership of corporations and intergovernmental tax sharing are common phenomena in many transitional economies, this study offers valuable insights into how the dual roles played by local governments affect tax policy enforcement in these economies.