Abstract: Under the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic and the downward pressure of the economy, it is extremely urgent to enhance the level of corporate risk-taking. With the implementation of the new period of tax and fee reduction policies, the economic pull effect of uncredited value added tax (VAT) refund reform has begun to attract much attention among both academics and practitioners. However, there is little research on how uncredited VAT refund reform influences corporate risk-taking decisions. Using the panel data of China’s A-share listed firms from 2007 to 2020 and taking Fiscal and Tax 2018 No. 70 document as a natural experimental scenario, how the uncredited VAT refund reform influences corporate risk-taking was systematically examined. The results show that the uncredited VAT refund reform promotes corporate risk-taking, and this positive relationship is pronounced when the tax enforcement is weak, government subsidy is high, firm’s equity right is non-state-owned and managerial selfishness is low. The mechanism test shows that the “cash flow effect” and “technological progress effect” are important paths for the reform of uncredited VAT refund to enhance corporate risk-taking. Further analysis shows that the positive effect of uncredited VAT refund reform on corporate risk-taking has industry heterogeneity and contributes to prompting SME “Specialized and New” transformation.