The trade-off theory implies that firms have target levels of tax burden and will adjust when the current levels of tax burden deviate from the target. Research on the determinants of the dynamic adjustment of tax burden has only recently begun and still remains a “black box”, requiring further in-depth research. Since tax compliance involves a strategic interaction between firms and tax authorities, tax enforcement will undoubtedly affect the adjustment of firms towards their target tax burdens. In view of this, this paper uses A-share listed firms from 2003 to 2019 to construct the research sample and examine the impact of tax enforcement on the speed at which firms adjust towards their target tax burdens. The test results show that the higher the level of tax enforcement, the slower the adjustment speed toward the target tax burdens, indicating that tax enforcement has an inhibitory effect on firms’ tax burden adjustment. Under various robustness tests, the conclusions remain unchanged. Further analyses show that tax enforcement restrains the speed of tax burden adjustment through two channels: Reducing firms’motivation for tax burden adjustment and increasing the costs of implementing tax adjustment activities. The impact of tax enforcement on the dynamic adjustment of tax burden is asymmetric. Compared with upward adjustments of the tax burden level (increasing to the target value), the impact of tax enforcement on the downward adjustment of the tax burden level (reducing to the target value) is more significant. The results of heterogeneity analysis show that the inhibitory effect of tax enforcement on the speed of adjustment toward the target tax burden is more obvious in firms with higher agency costs, more media attention, and lower level of product market competition. This paper not only sheds light on the determinants of the speed at which firms adjust their tax burdens but also addresses the insufficiencies of the existing literature. Furthermore, it investigates the influence of tax enforcement activities of the tax authorities on firms’ tax management behavior from a dynamic perspective, providing a comprehensive understanding of how tax enforcement affects firms’ behavior.