关键词: 政策不确定性, 理性经济人, 小微企业, 避税, 经济高质量发展

Abstract: In the post-COVID-19 era, China's economy continues to face the triple pressure of supply shock, demand contraction and budget weakening. In order to promote the stable operation of the society and boost stable economic growth, the top priority is to ensure employment and people's livelihood, and the key is to ensure the main body of the market. As the small and micro enterprises are the most active basic unit in the market economy, how to solve their problems of urgency, worry, difficulty and hope has become the focus and difficulty of ensuring the main body of the market. In recent years, the tax reduction and fee reduction focusing on reducing tax rates and tax rebates have effectively reduced the operating burden of small and micro enterprises. However, the policy environment with significantly increas uncertainties still plagues small and micro enterprises. On the one hand, this is due to the discontinuous implementation of policies by government departments, resulting in frequent changes in the policy environment on which market players rely for survival; On the other hand, due to the changes in the supply-demand relationship in the domestic and foreign markets, many unpredictable business risks have arisen, and the increase of market uncertainty has exacerbated the discontinuity and instability of macro policies to a certain extent. In this case, the uncertainty caused by macro policy adjustment will increase the operating cost of enterprises and cause great survival pressure. As the most dynamic and vulnerable market subject, how will small and micro enterprises deal with it?
Through a two-stage dynamic model, this paper analyzes the tax avoidance motivation of rational economic man in the shock institutional environment, simulates the choice of different tax avoidance decision combinations of small and micro enterprises under the influence of policy uncertainty, and puts forward the research hypothesis that policy uncertainty will make small and micro enterprises more willing to carry out tax avoidance activities. In order to verify the validity of the research hypothesis, this paper constructs an empirical model based on the data of the national tax survey from 2008 to 2016. The results show that with the increase of policy uncertainty, the tax avoidance degree of small and micro enterprises in the jurisdiction will indeed increase, and this conclusion has passed a series of robustness tests. The mechanism analysis shows that when the uncertainty of the local policy environment increases, the external financing cost of enterprises increases, the proportion of cash retained decreases, and the capital pressure increases. The difficulty and high cost of financing have always been the difficult problems perplexing the development of small and micro enterprises. Therefore, small and micro enterprises break through the capital dilemma by implementing tax avoidance. At the same time, when the policy uncertainty increases, small and micro enterprises do not suffer from more stringent tax collection and management, which is the basis for the smooth development of their tax avoidance activities. The results of the heterogeneity analysis show that the level of the urban financial development and the preferential tax treatment for small and micro profit enterprises have an inhibitory effect on the tax avoidance behavior of small and micro enterprises under the influence of policy uncertainty, while the level of marketization intensifies their tax avoidance activities.
In the light of the severe and complex international situation, the arduous task of the domestic reform, development and stability, and the severe impact of the COVID-19, this study notes that maintaining policy continuity and stability and continuously optimizing the business environment is important to ensure the healthy growth of small and micro enterprises, which provides empirical evidence for the necessity of maintaining policy continuity, stability and sustainability. In addition, this paper provides new ideas for protecting the market players, optimizing the business environment and ensuring targeted removal of institutional obstacles faced by small and micro enterprises, which is of practical significance for solving the problems restricting the high-quality development of small and micro enterprises and providing accurate measures for their relief.

Key words: Policy Uncertainty, Rational Homoeconomicus, Small and Micro Enterprises, Tax Avoidance, High-quality Economic Development