Abstract: Fiscal transparency and budget management are the focus of modern fiscal reform. Whether The Budget Law implemented since 2015 has improved the transparency of fiscal information and how it affects the income deviation between budget and final accounts are the topics worthy of in-depth discussion. By making use of the panel data of China’s 30 provinces except Tibet from 2010 to 2018, this paper evaluates the effects of The Budget Law on the income deviation between budget and final accounts in regions with different degrees of fiscal transparency, and then it further explores the action mechanism of the budget environment. The findings show that, compared with the regions with higher fiscal transparency, the regions with lower degree of transparency have greater income deviations between budget and final accounts, which is more obvious in the western region. The implementation of The Budget Law will help to reduce the income deviation, and significantly improve the income deviation between tax revenue budget and final accounts, while it is not significant for the non-tax revenue. Based on different budget environments, the effects of The Budget Law on the deviation are different: the economic environment will expand the income deviation between budget and final accounts, the regulatory environment will have a restraining effect, and the execution environment will have a dual impact. Therefore, according to the requirements of the budget system reform, it is necessary to fully refine budget management, to promote information openness and transparency, to emphasize the regional differences, to improve the budget environment, and to perfect the linkage supervision mechanism.

Key words: income deviation between budget and final accounts, fiscal transparency, The Budget Law, budget environment