Abstract: Under the background of China's tax collection and management being enhanced continuously, how to prevent and defuse the tax risks of enterprises has become an important problem to be solved urgently. The theoretical analysis shows that corporate internal control and the intensity of tax collection and management are the important micro and macro factors affecting tax risks. This paper conducts an empirical test by using the hand-collected data of tax credit rating of enterprises disclosed by the State Administration of Taxation (STA). The findings show that the better the quality of internal control, the lower the tax risks of enterprises are. After STA strengthened the intensity of tax collection and management, enterprises have been much more easily to find tax risks. The results of further research show that internal control can restrain the tax risks of enterprises through reducing the abnormal effective tax rates. Meanwhile, it is also found that enterprises with poor internal control have higher probability of exposure to tax risks. Therefore, enterprises should establish good internal control mechanism and strengthen tax related management to restrain tax risks. In addition, STA should make full use of big data and other technical means to improve the quality of tax collection and management, so as to help enterprises to reduce tax risks. As for tax agencies, they should strengthen their industrial self-discipline to help enterprises improve their internal control.

Key words: internal control, tax departments, tax collection and management, business tax risks