Is new technology always good? Artificial intelligence and corporate tax avoidance: Evidence from China

Corporate tax avoidance is an enduring topic. With the advent of the intelligent era, how artificial intelligence affects corporate tax avoidance has become an important topic of existing researches. We take Chinese A-share enterprises from 2008 to 2023 as the research samples, and empirically test the impact and mechanisms of artificial intelligence on corporate tax avoidance. Based on the perspective of corporate governance costs, we discuss the influence and function mechanism of artificial intelligence on corporate tax avoidance. The results show that artificial intelligence can promote tax avoidance for enterprises by increasing high-skilled labor cost and intelligent input cost. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that artificial intelligence exerts a more influence on corporate tax avoidance in circumstances where tax regulatory intensity is diminished, and the tax burden is escalated. This study enriches the research on the development of enterprise intelligence in the new era, opens the "black box" between artificial intelligence and tax avoidance, and provides evidence for the logic between them.