Thesis : Tax system ’s question and reform suggestion in China’s development strategy transformation
Introduction
After a long period of debate and exploration, in 1992, China clarified establishing a socialist market economy , and China’s economic development has entered a new stage. Before this, China’s fiscal system reform, like other reforms, was in the experimental stage of “crossing the river by feeling the stones”, and there was no clear reform goal, and various reform measures were mainly proposed for the urgent problems faced at that time.
Although this kind of system change has its advantages, it is not necessarily consistent with the requirements of the comprehensive establishment of market economy. Therefore, after the goal of China’s economic system reform was made clear in 1992, it is more urgent to establish a financial system suitable for market economy. In response to the acceleration of reforms in other areas, the reform of the fiscal system began to enter a stage with the reform of the tax sharing system as the core.
The theory and policy discussion of tax sharing reform began as early as the mid-1980s. In 1986, there was an idea of excessive tax reform, but it could not be implemented because the planned economy was still in the dominant position, the market mechanism was not fully developed, and the market environment necessary for the implementation of tax sharing was lacking.
Hierarchical financial system
Since China’s reform and development entered a new stage in 1992, the goal of the reform of the financial system has been clearly to implement a hierarchical financial system based on the tax sharing system (Wong, 2000), and from 1992 to 1993, pilot tax sharing systems have been carried out in Liaoning, Zhejiang, Xinjiang, Tianjin, Chongqing, Wuhan, Shenyang, Dalian, Qingdao and other places.
In 1993, the Chinese economy overheated and the shortcomings of the original fiscal system were exposed again, which prompted the central government to make up its mind to carry out the reform of tax sharing system on the whole country. In 1994, fiscal system reforming with the tax sharing system as the core was implemented nationwide (Fang, et al., 2022). There are many defects in the implementation process of the tax sharing reform, and some of the original envisaged reform goals have not been well achieved, which has led to some criticism, and some people even think that the tax sharing reform is a failure and should not have this reform. What is the actual situation?
Tax sharing system is a common system arrangement for market economy countries to deal with the financial relations which is conducive to correctly dealing with the financial distribution relationship between the central and local governments. The reasons for the problems in the implementation of China’s tax sharing system are different.
The reform of the tax sharing system was dependent on the central finance’s determination of the amount of tax rebates to local governments in 1993 as the base year, resulting in the extraordinary growth of local government revenue in the second half of 1993, and the central finance’s determination of the amount of tax rebates to local governments was unreasonable, so that the reform of the tax sharing system was intended to increase the relative financial resources of the central government (Loo, & Chow, 2006). The goal of adjusting the allocation of financial resources among regions has not been well achieved. This is indeed a major flaw in the 1994 tax-sharing reform. However, as a result, the tax sharing reform will weaken the financial power of local governments, and it will be very difficult to implement it smoothly if the vested interests of local governments are not properly accommodated. Moreover, the conditions required for the implementation of the new system cannot be fully satisfied in a short period of time, and there needs to be a transition between the old and new systems, otherwise it will inevitably lead to difficulties in connecting the old and new systems and great confusion.
Central government revenue
Of course, from the perspective of long-term development, this method of determining inter-governmental transfer payments and financial division is very unscientific, and it is difficult to achieve the goal of reasonable adjustment of financial distribution.The allocation of financial resources between governments should gradually be changed from the current “base law” to the “factor law”, and the allocation of financial resources and transfer payments between the central and local governments should be determined according to the actual responsibilities and revenue capacity of governments at all levels. Of course, the prerequisite is to realize the transformation of government functions and public finance of the financial system, and the central government and local governments should correctly divide their respective responsibilities according to the coverage of public goods externalities. The practice in the past few years shows that the reform of tax sharing system has not solved the problem of small scale of national fiscal revenue and financial difficulties of the government.
After 1994, the proportion of the central government’s fiscal revenue in the national revenue increased significantly, from 28.12 percent to 55.7 percent in 1994, and then dropped slightly to 50.96 percent in 1999, basically reversing the decline in the relative financial resources of the central government since the beginning of reform and opening up. This is a remarkable achievement of the tax-sharing reform.
However, the proportion of total national budget revenue to GDP did not show a significant upward trend. In 1994 and 1995, the proportion of total national budget revenue to GDP was 11.2% and 110.7% respectively, maintaining a downward trend. After 1996, it picked up slightly and rose to 13.87% in 1999. The goal of the tax-sharing reform is to increase the two proportions of fiscal revenue, and the goal of the reform of the public finance of the fiscal system requires a substantial increase in these two proportions (Chen, et al., 2023). At present, only the government’s fiscal revenue of total fiscal revenue has increased significantly, and the proportion of national fiscal revenue in GDP has not shown a significant upward trend, which seems to be contrary to the original intention of the reform. However, this is not surprising considering that the reform of the tax sharing system has just begun, and the fiscal system is still in the stage of replacing the old and the new.
In the new tax system, the turnover tax system tax like value-added tax, consumping tax and corporate tax occupies the main position, of which value-added tax is the most important, consumption tax and business tax are only supplementary. However, the implementation of value-added tax technical requirements are relatively high, especially for the invoice management system and the quality of tax collectors is relatively high, if there is no corresponding supporting measures, there will be more serious tax evasion and tax fraud problems.
Reform of tax sharing system
Since the introduction of value-added tax in 1984, there have been these problems, and after the tax reform in 1994, this problem has not been solved. Therefore, the value-added tax as the main tax has attracted a lot of criticism. However, on the other hand, if we do not use value-added tax as the main tax, we should imitate the United States, as some people advocate.
The implementation of the tax system with income tax as the main body will certainly reduce the requirements for tax collection and management? In fact, the implementation of the tax system based on income tax, its collection and management difficulty in China is no less than value-added tax (Wang, et al., 2022). The collection of income tax requires the income of enterprises and households. An accurate understanding of the situation is difficult to achieve in China’s current stage of socio-economic development. China’s financial system is underdeveloped, the disclosure of corporate financial and accounting information is not standardized enough, the transparency is very low, no matter the income of enterprises or residents, the tax authorities are faced with a serious problem of information asymmetry, and the tax cost of collecting income tax is high.
For a long time, China’s fiscal revenue mainly relies on the enterprise revenue provided by state-owned enterprises, and the main basis for income collection is the subordination relationship of enterprises. The corresponding tax collection and administration is relatively simple, which is quite different from the tax collection and administration system in public finance. As long as we decide to establish a fiscal system compatible with the market economy and realize the public finance of the fiscal system, we need to realize the modernization of tax collection and administration and improve the efficiency of tax agencies, whether it is based on income tax or value-added tax. Therefore, the main tax status of VAT should not be denied because of the difficulties of tax audit and tax evasion in VAT collection and administration.
As for the VAT is currently production-oriented, which is not conducive to stimulating fixed asset investment, mainly because the VAT collection and management system is not perfect, there are still some technical difficulties in deducting the purchase cost of fixed assets from the sales income of enterprises, and this problem can be automatically solved after the new tax system is perfected. Although the reform of the tax sharing system has taken care of local vested interests (Jiang, et al., 2022), standardized tax sharing system and the emphasis on the central government’s financial power have imposed great constraints on local vested interests. Therefore, there are strong opinions from local governments and enterprises during the implementation process, especially the cancellation of some tax incentives that have been implemented for a long time. Limit arbitrary local tax cuts and exemptions. The reform of the tax sharing system is a denial of the past fiscal system that divided the food and expenditure, and the responsibility of fiscal expenditure and revenue may not be equal, so it is considered by some people that it is not conducive to mobilizing the enthusiasm of local governments to develop the economy and collect fiscal revenue, and is not conducive to improving fiscal efficiency. This is a misunderstanding of public finances.
Future development
The continuous reform of the budget management system of the central and local fiscal and tax relations has established the concept of public finance and related basic systems. But there is still a long way to go.
In 2018, China’s central government revenue accounted for 46.6% of the total. This is the standard of general public budgets. If we adopt a double budget approach and add government-managed funds and social security funds, the proportion will further decline. In market economy countries, the total income of the central government is generally more than 60%. From the perspective of international comparison, the proportion of central fiscal revenue in China is seriously low, and there is a lack of local taxes. After the introduction of real estate tax, if the income distribution of other taxes is not adjusted, the proportion of central fiscal revenue will decline. The most important reason for the high proportion of land transfer revenue in local fiscal revenue is the dualization of the urban and rural land system, which is caused by the special land transfer system, which has seriously distorted the allocation of land resources and jeopardized social fairness and justice, and should be the focus of the next reform.
Although the tax sharing system has brought a series of advantages, it has also exposed shortcomings and problems. First of all, local governments are still facing strong financial pressure, including debt risks, insufficient revenue and other problems. Secondly, the distribution of resources is still unbalanced, resulting in the overall development level of financial system construction needs to be improved. Therefore, the tax sharing reform must be further developed, strengthen policy coordination, and promote a more reasonable allocation of financial resources.
In order to solve the problems and deficiencies of tax sharing system, it is necessary to reconstruct financial management. On the one hand, it is necessary to establish a sound policy market and management mechanism to ensure the fair, fair and open use of financial resources. On the other hand, it is necessary to strictly implement financial regulations and policies to promote the refinement and standardization of financial management. Through these measures, we will ensure that the tax sharing system plays its normal role and comprehensively deepen fiscal reform.
In the reform of tax sharing system, to promote innovation mechanism and establish modern financial system in line with the requirements of market economy, on the one hand, we need to reduce administrative intervention, grasp the law of market economy, and effectively promote the transformation of government functions. On the other hand, it is necessary to adapt to the challenges of international fiscal and tax competition, clarify the management functions and legal responsibilities of the central and local governments, establish a complete financial Treasury and credit evaluation system, and realize the modernization of public financial services.
Reference
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