Abstract: In recent years, the nonlinear and asymmetric relationship between tax expenditure and performance change of Chinese enterprises has attracted extensive attention of scholars at home and abroad. This phenomenon of tax stickiness is an important source of tax pain and one of the reasons why enterprises have a weak sense of the benefits from tax and fee reduction policies. As a result, the existing academic research on the economic consequences of tax stickiness needs to be further expanded and deepened. This paper selects A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2010 to 2020 as a sample to empirically test the impact of tax stickiness on corporate innovation. The results indicate that tax stickiness hinders corporate innovation. The higher the tax stickiness, the less innovative output, and the worse the performance of substantive and strategic innovation. A research on the mechanism of action shows that tax stickiness affects corporate innovation by reducing innovation willingness and crowding out innovation resources. Further exploration of the characteristics and causes of tax stickiness reveals that tax stickiness has obvious passive characteristics, and taxation intensity and fiscal pressure of local government are important reasons for the occurrence of tax stickiness. Finally, a research that takes account of the recent policies aimed at reducing corporate tax burden and optimizing tax enforcement shows that policies such as tax and fee reduction, big data tax enforcement, and the merger of national tax bureaus and local tax bureaus can reduce the adverse impact of tax stickiness on corporate innovation. This paper not only expands the research on the economic consequences of tax stickiness and the influencing factors of corporate innovation, but also has certain enlightening significance for clarifying the causes of tax stickiness and the role of tax stickiness in corporate development.

Key words: tax stickiness, corporate innovation, tax enforcement, fiscal pressure