Abstract: The reform of interest rate control and the level of income tax rate affect the financial policy of enterprises, and then affect the capital structure of enterprises and adjust the debt ratio of enterprises.This paper empirically examines how the policies of different tax rates affect the deleveraging behavior of real enterprises before and after the liberalization of interest rate control by using the reform of income tax rate in 2007 and quasi-natural experiments on the liberalization of interest rate regulation in 2013. The results show that: the decrease of income tax rate not only significantly reduces the financial leverage of corporations, but also inhibits excessive debt; the deleveraging effect of tax rate reduction is stronger after the liberalization of bank control. Further research shows in the case of excessive liabilities of non-state-owned enterprises, the reduction of tax rate will significantly reduce the debt ratio of enterprises. Therefore, tax policy and financial policy can be used as a combination means of deleveraging, while improving the market structure and reducing the cost of capital structure adjustment.

Key words: change of tax rate, deleveraging, relaxing interest rate regulation, deviation of capital structure