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Luxury Goods Should Be Treated Differently.

2011/7/22 17:04:00 58

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In Chinese history and culture, extravagance is a bad word which makes people talk, and it is morally untenable.

Extravagance, waste and corruption are often used as objects of flogging.

In historical records, some extravagant people, such as Shi Chong, He Ceng and Wang Kai of Dou Fu in Jin Dynasty, have no good image.

However, it is very interesting that despite the historical criticism of extravagant and wasteful behavior, the ancients never thought of curbing luxury by levying taxes on luxury goods.

Early China

tax revenue

In the Qin and Han Dynasties, whether it is the Fu Fu or the latter, the essence is the poll tax, which has nothing to do with luxuries and extravagance.

At the same time, the government also seeks profits from monopoly and other systems, and secretly takes people's wealth, such as the salt and iron monopoly in the period of Emperor Han Wu.

Whether salt or iron, they are necessities of life. Salt and iron monopoly is compulsory collection of necessities of life.

After the chaos of an Shi, the two tax law was implemented, and the tax system with the nature of poll tax was pformed into a tax system dominated by property tax. This change did not change the trend of levying necessities.

In Song Dynasty, the monopoly of salt, wine, vinegar and tea was strictly implemented. Monopoly revenue accounted for half of the government's revenue. In addition to liquor, monopoly goods were all necessities of life.

Salt was even one of the most important sources of taxes in the Republic of China.

In ancient times, taxes were imposed on necessities of life.

Luxury goods

Non taxation is mainly related to the cost of collection.

During the financial crisis in the Tang Dynasty, Liu Yan, a financier, said: "because the people are in a hurry, the tax is enough."

Before Liu said this, he got a lot of financial revenue by adding heavy taxes to salt, which made the Tang Dynasty through the financial difficulties.

Because salt is the necessities of life, as long as the government controls production or sale, people have no choice but to obey.

Other necessities in circulation, like salt, are inelastic and can be imposed by the government.

This is actually achieved by levying tax fairness.

This practice has become a kind of path dependence, which runs through China's monarchy society. People do not know what is wrong.

This situation has changed in the late Qing Dynasty.

In the last years of the Qing Dynasty, Ma Jianzhong, who had gone to the United Kingdom and France for field trips, wrote to Li Hongzhang, saying: "the western countries impose heavy tobacco instead of salt, and salt is used by the rich and poor."

In the Qing Dynasty, salt tax was one of the pillars of government revenue, and its income accounted for more than 10% of the total revenue of the Qing Dynasty.

By contrast, Ma Jianzhong saw the biggest difference between tax collection in China and the West.

From the beginning of Ma Jianzhong, people gradually formed a consensus that just taxation should be taxable to luxuries, and to reduce or exempt the necessities of life.

But this ideal has not yet been fully realized.

Today, in the western countries, there is no tax exemption for food and clothing.

Luxury goods are also subject to consumption tax outside value-added tax, and the tax rate on the necessities of value-added tax or business tax is also very low.

That is to say, even today, the tax rate of lowering the necessities of life rather than luxuries should still be the targets of tax reform.

But in the past, the controversy over the import tax reduction of luxury goods is not unreasonable.

The luxuries in taxation are defined as non life necessities, and the necessities of life are often defined by customs duties.

The necessity of life is obviously a dynamic concept. Tariff items often lag behind the changing situation.

In fact, with the progress of society, the scope of people's necessities is constantly expanding. The progress of human material life is the process that luxury goods are constantly becoming necessaries of life.

Originally, luxury goods were often turned into necessities, such as cars, phones, computers, imported milk powder and so on, because of technological innovation, economic development and people's income growth.

Luxury goods have become necessities of life, and their tax rates should of course be reduced.

Commodities that have already become necessities of life are still subject to the taxation of luxuries, which will hamper demand because of the high prices caused by high taxes. This is a luxury product created by tariff policy rather than a luxury in real sense. Once the tariff is lowered and the price is reduced, it will need to increase substantially and become a necessity in the real sense.

The deletion of items that have become necessities of life from the tax items of luxuries and the taxation of essential commodities reflect the principle of low taxes for the necessities of life.

To understand these joints, luxury goods should be reduced to tax.

Just what luxury goods already have the nature of necessities, need to reduce taxes, need to seriously discriminate treatment, there is a huge gaming space.