According to the hypothesis of economics, everyone is an "economic man" with limited rationality and will pursue the maximization of their own utility, and the management authorities of small and medium-sized enterprises are no exception. First of all, small and medium-sized enterprises, as economic men, are self-interested and will pursue the maximization of their own interests in their trading behavior. The interests here include both material interests that can be measured by money and intangible interests that cannot be measured by money. Second, small and medium-sized enterprises have opportunistic behavior as economic men. In other words, once SMEs have the opportunity, they may distort the data, deliberately confuse right and wrong, and fraudulently pursue self-interest. Third, as economic men, SMEs are rational. Before operating profit, we should first consider the illegality of its behavior, then estimate the technical ability of external supervision departments, investigate the probability of violation and the severity of punishment, and then decide whether to operate profit after cost-benefit analysis. However, in China's real economic life, due to the limitation of tax inspectors' professional ability, inspection means and inspection surface, it is difficult to detect the profit manipulation behavior of some small and medium-sized enterprises, and even if it is detected, the punishment for its behavior by law is invalid. Therefore, as long as the expected income of profit manipulation is greater than the expected cost, it is inevitable for small and medium-sized enterprises to manipulate profits as rational economic men.
2. Information asymmetry-the direct cause of profit manipulation
According to the theory of information asymmetry, buyers and sellers have different information in the market. Driven by the maximization of utility, conveniences with information advantages will use favorable information to make profits for themselves. In real economic life, information asymmetry will always exist because the producers of accounting information have advantages over the users of accounting information in obtaining time and content. For small and medium-sized enterprises and their external users of accounting information, as producers of accounting information, small and medium-sized enterprises directly participate in the operation and management of enterprises and control the whole process of business activities, while external users of their accounting information do not directly participate in the production and operation of enterprises, and can only rely on the information provided by small and medium-sized enterprises to understand the operating conditions of small and medium-sized enterprises. Information asymmetry provides the basis and conditions for the moral hazard of the management of small and medium-sized enterprises, and gives the management of small and medium-sized enterprises the opportunity to cover up their true information. Therefore, the management of small and medium-sized enterprises, as rational economic men, will use information asymmetry to manipulate profits under the principle of maximizing utility.
3. The defects of accounting system and tax law itself are the main reasons for profit manipulation.
First of all, the formulation process of accounting standards and accounting systems is the result of many games between stakeholders, and all stakeholders want to make accounting standards and accounting systems beneficial to themselves for their own interests. Therefore, in order to balance the accounting standards among stakeholders and ensure that all parties accept the results of the game, it is necessary to relax the choice of accounting standards for some economic business accounting treatment, so accounting standards as an incomplete contract provide the possibility for small and medium-sized enterprises to manipulate profits. Secondly, the time lag between accounting standards and accounting social practice makes accounting standards often lag behind the innovation of accounting practice and economic behavior, which leads to the phenomenon of "no basis" in accounting treatment of some economic businesses, which also provides space for small and medium-sized enterprises to manipulate profits. Thirdly, in the process of collecting, processing and reporting accounting information, there are too many opportunities for enterprise management to choose, estimate, judge and predict independently and the application of accounting estimation, which provides the possibility for small and medium-sized enterprises to manipulate profits. According to the assumption that "economic man" maximizes personal utility, the management authorities of small and medium-sized enterprises will inevitably aim at maximizing personal utility when choosing to use accounting policies.
In addition, China's tax law system is not perfect and there are many preferential tax policies. For example, China's enterprise income tax is subject to a proportional tax rate of 33%, and at the same time, two "caring tax rates" are stipulated, that is, enterprises with an annual taxable income of less than 30,000 yuan (including 30,000 yuan) will temporarily reduce their income tax at the rate of 18%; Enterprises with an annual taxable income of 30,000 yuan to 654.38+10,000 yuan (including 654.38+10,000 yuan) are temporarily exempted from income tax at the rate of 27%; If the annual taxable income exceeds 654.38 million yuan, the income tax shall be levied at the rate of 33%. For the managers of small and medium-sized enterprises, the provisions of the tax law provide flexible space for them to manipulate profits, especially when the taxable income just exceeds 30,000 yuan and 654.38+10,000 yuan, the managers can reduce the taxable income to less than 30,000 yuan or 654.38+10,000 yuan by manipulating profits, thus being eligible to pay income tax at the caring tax rate.
4. The deterioration of tax environment-the social root of profit manipulation
As a lever and means to raise public funds and participate in social distribution, taxation needs the active participation and cooperation of the whole society. The attitude and support of society towards taxation are all important factors that restrict the realization of taxation. There is a famous saying in western countries: "Only death and tax payment are inevitable", which shows that tax payment has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people in the west. However, in China, due to the imperfect tax legal system, backward collection and management means and technology, citizens' tax awareness is weak. A survey of the heads of 27 enterprises in Beijing by Beijing Business Consulting Company shows that 54.8% of the enterprises have different forms and degrees of tax evasion, 6 1.9% of the business operators disagree with the view that "the state tax ensures the improvement of the overall welfare of society", and half of the taxpayers think that "the state regulates the unfairness of wealth distribution through taxation" is wrong. According to the random sampling interview of Shanghai Zero Market Research Co., Ltd. with more than 300 citizens in six major cities, such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, it is found that 60% of the citizens do not know that their monthly income exceeds that of 800 yuan, and 25% of the citizens say that they will not take the initiative to pay taxes even if their income reaches 800 yuan (although the current new standard is that their monthly income exceeds 1600 yuan, there are still many people who will.