Paper Keywords local tax, tax legislative power, tax management power
The local tax management system is a system that divides the local tax legislative power and tax management power between the central and local governments, and it is an important part of the tax management system. The different division and combination of central and local tax legislative power and tax management power have formed different modes of local tax management system. In China's tax-sharing reform, the reform of local tax management system is relatively backward. Although the fixed income of local governments has been determined, the tax power is still highly concentrated in the central government, which is not conducive to the development of regional economy by local governments according to local conditions, and does not meet the requirements of the tax-sharing system for the rational division of tax power between central and local governments.
First, the status quo of China's local tax management system
1. A more thorough way to divide taxes. The main taxes belong to the central government, and sporadic tax sources belong to the local government.
Establish two major tax systems: central and local. The fixed income of the central finance includes customs duties, value-added tax, consumption tax, central enterprise income tax, income tax of local banks, foreign banks and non-bank financial enterprises, and income paid by the head offices of railway departments, banks and insurance companies (including business tax, income tax and urban maintenance and construction tax). The fixed income of local finance includes: business tax, local enterprise income tax, urban land use tax, personal income tax (excluding interest tax on residents' savings deposits), fixed assets investment direction adjustment tax, urban maintenance and construction tax, property tax, vehicle and vessel use tax, stamp duty, slaughter tax, agricultural tax, agricultural tax levied on agricultural specialty income, cultivated land occupation tax, deed tax, inheritance tax and gift tax, land value-added tax, paid transfer income of state-owned land, etc.
The income enjoyed by the central and local governments includes value-added tax, resource tax and securities transaction tax. The central government shares 75% of the value-added tax, and local governments share 25%. Resource tax is divided according to different resource types, land resource tax is local income, and offshore oil resource tax is central income. The securities transaction tax is shared by the central and local governments 50% respectively.
2. The tax revenue is highly concentrated and the local mobility is small.
China's tax legislative power is relatively centralized. For a long time, China has implemented a planned economy, and it is difficult to completely reverse the traditional system in the early stage of the establishment of a market economy. The legislative power of central tax, * * tax and local tax should be concentrated in the central government to ensure the needs of the central government to adjust the economy. Whether the central government will return the part of local taxes enjoyed by * *, or tax laws and major policies, including the right to levy and the scope of taxation. , are uniformly stipulated by the central government. The specific provisions shall be formulated by the Ministry of Finance of People's Republic of China (PRC) or State Taxation Administration of The People's Republic of China. Local governments can only implement it according to national tax policies and laws. However, local governments also have some flexibility. For example, the levy and cessation of travel tax and property tax are decided by the provincial people's government. The reduction or exemption of some local taxes shall be reported to the provincial tax authorities for approval according to certain authority.
3. Independent organizational structure
Since the implementation of the tax-sharing system in 1994, a central tax system has been established, that is, all provinces, cities and counties have national tax bureaus, which are responsible for managing vertical personnel and vertical funds, and are responsible for tax revenue and enjoying the central part of tax revenue; Set up a local tax system, implement vertical management of personnel, level management of funds, and undertake local tax revenue.
Second, the evaluation of China local tax management system
1. The classification of taxes is unscientific and irregular. The concept of local tax is not clear.
Although the tax-sharing financial system divides taxes into central taxes, local taxes and * * * taxes, the classification standards are chaotic, including taxes, economic attributes of industries and enterprises, and affiliation. If enterprise income tax is divided into central enterprise income tax, foreign-funded enterprise income tax and local enterprise income tax, then the income tax of central enterprises and foreign-funded enterprises is classified as central fixed income. Local enterprise income tax is listed as local fixed income, but it does not include the income tax of local banks, foreign banks and non-bank financial enterprises; Urban maintenance and construction tax is listed as local fixed income, but it does not include centralized payment by railway departments, bank head offices and insurance companies; Personal income tax is classified as local fixed income, but when personal savings interest is resumed, it is classified as central income. This makes the business tax, personal income tax, resource tax and stamp duty in local taxes have the nature of * * * *. This overlapping division method violates the standard requirements of tax sharing system, which makes it difficult to accurately define the connotation and extension of central tax and local tax.
2. The current local tax management system is too centralized.
First of all, let's take a look at China's national conditions. On the one hand, China is a unitary country with a highly centralized political system and economic system for a long time. At present, China is moving towards the goal of marketization, and it is necessary to strive to promote and maintain the formation and development of a unified national market, which objectively requires the concentration of tax rights; On the other hand, China has a vast territory, the regional economic development is extremely unbalanced, and there are obvious gradient differences among the three economic zones. Due to the influence of natural geographical conditions, historical traditions and other factors, the economic content of each region has its own characteristics, which will inevitably lead to differences in tax source distribution, tax cost, tax affordability and other aspects in different regions of China. Objectively, it requires appropriate decentralization, so that local governments can flexibly grasp regional tax policies according to local characteristics and solve various problems in the economy in time. It can be seen that the factors that require centralization and decentralization coexist at the same time, and neither centralization nor decentralization can meet the various economic and political needs of China. For our country, to establish a scientific tax management system is to find the best combination point and way of centralization and decentralization.
Iii. Thoughts on the reform of local tax management system in China 1. Legislative power of local tax
(1) Possibility and necessity of giving local governments some tax legislative power
First of all, it should be clear that whether local governments in China can have tax legislative power depends on China's legislative system. Article 100 of China's Constitution stipulates that "the people's congresses of provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions and their standing committees may formulate local regulations on the premise that different constitutions, laws and administrative regulations are inconsistent", which provides a legal basis for local governments in China to have local tax legislative power. Secondly, endowing local governments with the necessary tax legislative power is suitable for the unbalanced development of regional economy in China, which is beneficial to local governments to formulate local tax policies flexibly according to local tax source distribution, tax cost, economic characteristics and other factors, and to organize income and regulate the economy more effectively; At the same time, transforming some reasonable fees with tax nature into local taxes through local legislation will also be of great help to change the current situation of excessive and disorderly fees and straighten out the national distribution order. Visible, from the real economic situation, it is absolutely necessary to give local governments certain tax legislative power.
(2) The division of local tax legislative power between the central and local governments How to divide the local tax legislative power between the central and local governments, which taxes belong to the central and which belong to the local governments, should be analyzed from the political and economic perspectives. The author thinks: (1) In order to ensure the unification of national laws and regulations and maintain the unified national market, the legislative power of the taxes generally levied in the whole country belongs to the central government; (2) For tax sources with obvious regional characteristics and no national distribution, local governments can legislate to collect local taxes according to the specific conditions and actual needs of local economic development. It should be noted that when local governments levy new taxes, they cannot encroach on the central tax base, and they cannot affect the national macro-control and the formation of a unified national market. It should be conducive to the development of regional economy and give full consideration to the tax affordability of local people. Therefore, it is necessary to give local power and restrain it at the same time to ensure the implementation of the above principles. Therefore, the central government should retain the veto power to levy new taxes on local governments. 2. Tax management power of local taxes
Taxes legislated by local governments should naturally belong to local governments. The legislative power to collect local taxes nationwide belongs to the central government, but local governments can and should enjoy certain tax management rights. The intersection and combination of legislative power and management power at different levels will make the division of tax power more flexible and elastic. Now, according to the attributes of various taxes and their role in regulating the economy, China's tax management power is divided as follows:
(1) All taxes related to safeguarding national rights and interests and national macro-control should belong to the central government, so as to ensure the unification of the national foreign policy and the comprehensive and thorough implementation of the central tax policy. Such as personal income tax and resource tax. Judging from its specific functions, such taxes should be classified into the central tax system. However, due to the imperfect tax-sharing system, backward collection and management level and support for the development of the central and western regions, it is temporarily classified as a local government. Obviously, in order to ensure the full play of the specific functions of such taxes, their tax management power should be completely placed under the central government.
(2) Taxes with mobile tax sources should be managed by the central government to maintain a unified national market. Such as enterprise income tax, business tax, urban maintenance and construction tax and other taxes that directly affect the flow of production factors. If this kind of taxes devolves the tax management power to local governments, it will inevitably affect the formation of corporate profits and commodity prices and have a negative effect on economic operation. Because: (1) In the absence of budget constraints of local governments, this will inevitably lead to the comparison of tax preferences between regions, thus attracting various factors of production to flow into regions, which will not only reduce tax revenue, but also violate the principle of tax neutrality and interfere with the role of market mechanism, leading to unequal competition between regions and enterprises, reducing economic operation efficiency and generating excessive tax burden on the economy; (2) In the case of local government budget constraints, due to the economic prosperity and rich tax sources in developed areas, more tax revenue can be obtained with lower tax rates and more tax relief. In order to balance the budget at the same level, there is little room for tax reduction and fee reduction in poor areas, and there will inevitably be a situation in which "the poor surpass the poor and the rich surpass the rich". Of course, individual tax items in such taxes should be analyzed and judged in detail. For some taxes that are suitable for local sales and operation, the tax management power can still be delegated to local governments. For example, in France, beverage sales tax, entertainment tax and toll tax are listed as local taxes, and local governments have the right to manage taxes. (3) Taxes whose tax sources are not mobile, which do not affect the flow of production factors across the country and do not interfere with the allocation of resources by the market mechanism can all be delegated to local governments. Such as property taxes and certain behavioral taxes. An important feature of property tax is the general lack of liquidity of its tax sources. Of course, property tax targets include legal persons and natural persons. If the corporate tax burden varies from place to place, it may affect the capital flow when reinvesting, but compared with other factors that affect the capital flow, such as market demand and factor price, a slightly higher or lower property tax burden will not have much impact. Behavior tax is a kind of tax that the state takes some specific behaviors of taxpayers as the tax object in order to achieve a certain purpose. Behavior tax has a strong timeliness, and some have the characteristics of adapting to local conditions. It can be seen that the behavior tax is closely related to the state's regulatory intentions, such as the fixed asset investment direction adjustment tax. However, there are still some behavior taxes that have little impact on the overall economic situation of the country, and are more suitable for local governments to decide tax policies according to local conditions, such as slaughter tax, banquet tax, deed tax and farmland occupation tax. Therefore, for property tax and partial behavior tax, local governments can determine the levy and cessation of property tax and partial behavior tax, the adjustment and reduction of tax items and tax rates according to various factors such as tax source adequacy, tax cost level, regional gap between the rich and the poor, budget balance and so on. Under the perfect tax-sharing system, especially under the scientific transfer payment system, balancing the budget constraints and developing the balance between the two forces of regional economy can enable local governments to act cautiously in exercising their tax management power completely according to the characteristics and actual conditions of their own regions, so as to achieve the purpose of organizing income and effectively regulating the economy with high efficiency and low cost.
Of course, due to the unclear division of powers in China, the transfer payment system is still in a transitional stage, and the decentralization of tax power should be gradual, and the decentralized tax power should be stipulated in the local tax legislation. When the tax-sharing system is perfect to a certain extent, the division of tax rights should be clarified and standardized in the form of tax management system.