Corporate tax avoidance activities are prevalent in many countries, some of which have formulated anti-tax avoidance policies to curb such activities. China amended the chapter on special tax adjustment in the Enterprise Income Tax Law in 2008 and implemented Measures for Special Tax Adjustment in 2009. This study applies the Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share securities markets in 2005-2015 to investigate whether the implementation of Measures for Special Tax Adjustment has effectively curbed corporate tax avoidance activities and increased income tax costs. The empirical results indicate that company effective tax rates (ETRs) are increased significantly after the implementation of Measures for Special Tax Adjustment. And, companies with greater amounts of goods (or service) related party transactions significantly increased ETRs after the implementation of Measures for Special Tax Adjustment. The Chinese government continues to issue numerous rules focused on transfer pricing to amend Measures for Special Tax Adjustment. Therefore, we recommend that corporations carefully assess relevant transactions to avoid being subject to Measures for Special Tax Adjustment legislation.
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