This paper examines whether ties to politicians by corporate boards of directors weaken the effectiveness of tax authorities in constraining tax avoidance in China. We use a unique data set to measure geographic time‐variant tax enforcement, including the probability of income tax audit, the expertise of tax officers, and the consequences of underreporting tax liabilities. Based on a sample of 11,121 firm‐years from 2003 to 2013, we find that the deterrent effect of the probability that a firm's taxable income understatement will be detected and lead to heavy penalties is significantly undermined if the board is politically connected. To enhance our analysis, we use opportunities for income shifting, the most likely mechanism through which Chinese firms avoid taxes on an ongoing basis, to illustrate how connected boards exert power to unwind the constraining effect of tax enforcement. Overall, our results suggest that a board's ties to politicians can be a significant challenge to the effective enforcement of tax compliance in a politically controlled economy.

We investigate the relation between tax avoidance and offshore activities using a new text-based measure for offshore activities based on Hoberg and Moon (2017, 2019). Our evidence shows that, although providing cross-border tax-avoidance opportunities, offshore activities reduce the marginal benefits of tax avoidance by introducing incremental foreign-market risk exposure. We find that the intensity of offshore sales of outputs is positively associated with the cash effective tax rate. The effect is stronger when the offshore sales rely on overseas production rather than domestic production, when the offshore sales are located in countries with higher economic uncertainty, when the firm has a lower ability to pass on shocks, and when the firm has less flexibility in adjusting tax strategies.