The Impact of Tax Incentive Policies on Labor Income Disparity: A Perspective Based on Skill Premium

As a significant measure in China's tax reform, the impact of the Value-Added Tax (VAT) credit refund policy on income distribution remains an area ripe for research. This paper takes the 2018 VAT credit refund reform as a quasi-natural experiment and empirically examines the effect of the VAT credit refund policy on labor skill premium and its underlying mechanisms using data from China's A-share listed companies. The study finds that: (1) The VAT credit refund policy significantly widens the wage gap between skilled and unskilled workers within enterprises, thereby enhancing the labor skill premium, a conclusion that holds after a series of robustness tests. (2) Mechanism tests suggest that, under the “capital-skill complementarity” hypothesis, the VAT credit refund policy primarily boosts the labor skill premium through mechanisms that incentivize capital investment and alleviate liquidity constraints. (3) Heterogeneity analysis reveals that the impact of the VAT credit refund policy varies across different firms, with more pronounced effects on the labor skill premium in firms facing high financing constraints, high tax burdens, mature firms, and those in industries with lower technological levels. This paper enriches the research on the economic consequences of the VAT credit refund policy from the perspective of labor skill premium and provides new theoretical and practical references for the government to optimize tax policy design and promote common prosperity.