Abstract: Based on the provincial data from 2002 to 2011, this paper employs the approach of representative tax system to estimate the tax efforts of China’s corporate income tax in 29 provinces. The findings show that: (1) tax efforts of enterprise income tax during 2002-2011 were increasing continuously, its contribution to the increase of enterprise income tax is 15.49 percent; (2) tax efforts varied greatly in China’s eastern, central and western regions during 2002-2011, the eastern region has the highest degree, followed by the western region, and the central region has the lowest degree. Therefore, it is suggested to improve the tax planning appropriately, namely, to determine the tax planning according to the tax revenue capacity and the degree of tax efforts of different regions.

Key words: corporate income tax; earning capacity; tax effort; tax collection and management