Experts Say The Mainland China Tax Pain Index Global Second Exaggerates.

Recently, according to the list released by Forbes magazine, China's "tax misery index" ranks second in the world, ranking the second place after China's first second place in 2009. And China's recent real estate " Named tax Tax issues such as "moon cake tax" have also triggered public discussion on China's tax system.

What is the tax burden in the mainland? Compared with other countries, is China's tax burden high or low? How is the reform process of tax burden in China? How should we improve the tax burden system in China? With these questions, our reporter interviewed experts.

China's tax burden is exaggerated.

"Over the years, China has been ranked among the top countries with the highest tax burden in the world. However, as far as the actual situation is concerned, China's tax burden can not be as high as this level, which is obviously exaggerated. Yang Tao, deputy director of the monetary theory and Policy Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said: "from the current burden of tax revenue in China, our tax burden is not at a very high level."

Yang Tao believes that "Forbes" magazine " Tax burden The pain index ranking has a clear subjective judgment. Because of the different tax structure, it is simply weighted according to the "Forbes" tax Distress Index for the statutory tax rates of different taxes, and does not reflect the true level of tax burden.

However, Professor Sun Yudong of the school of public administration of Renmin University of China also stressed that although the index of "tax misery index" is not accurate, it still has some reference significance for China's current tax reform. He thinks: from a longitudinal perspective, our macro tax burden is still somewhat high, mainly manifested in the highest marginal tax rate of the main tax categories in our country is relatively high, and the statutory tax rate is not lower than the corresponding tax level of the developed countries. For example, the highest marginal tax rate of personal income tax in China is 45%, while Britain is 40%, Japan is 37%, the United States is 35%, and Russia has a 13% proportional tax rate. Besides the main tax categories, our country also has consumption tax and other local taxes, which makes the nominal burden of tax burden higher.

Yang Tao analysis, the reason why citizens feel the tax burden is heavy now is that because of personal income tax and corporate income tax, other government tax revenues, such as land transfer fees and state-owned enterprises' capital income, have a higher proportion of government revenue. At the same time, the growth of social security facilities for social welfare and conversion to residents' services is not enough, which has led to a misunderstanding of the level of tax burden in China.

We will further promote tax reform.

"In fact, the proportion of personal income tax is not high among all kinds of tax revenue in China. Most of the tax revenue in the world is related to enterprises, but the proportion of corporate tax in China may be higher." Xu Xiaonian, Professor of economics and finance at the China Europe International Business School, said that the tax cost of enterprises was transferred to the end consumers through commodities. In fact, a considerable portion of the tax paid by the end consumers comes from the repeated sales tax, which involves transportation, construction, finance and insurance, post and telecommunications, cultural and sports, entertainment and service industries.

"It does not reflect excessive taxation. taxation The details of the problem, but in our tax system and tax revenue structure, the state treasury income mainly depends on indirect tax collection, while the indirect tax system reform led by structural tax reduction is lagging behind. The focus of direct tax collection has not really realized the transfer to the high-income class. Jia Kang, director of the Fiscal Science Research Institute of the Ministry of finance, said that with the rapid development of social economy, the drawbacks of tax revenue being too heavily dependent on indirect taxes have begun to appear in China. Jia Kang believes that the current tax system will cause a faster growth trend of the proportion of government revenue in the national income distribution area, and will also inhibit the use of income links to residents' consumption, that is, the excessive tax burden of low-income members in society.

Jia Kang said that the current tax structure in China is based on the tax reform in 1994. At that time, the state finance, especially the central finance, was very nervous and unable to meet the management requirements of the whole social and economic development for the normal performance of the government. In the design of tax system, we chose the indirect tax which is easy to realize income as the main body, and highlighted the important position of value added tax and business tax.

However, as the newly revised personal income tax law came into effect on September 1st, China is accelerating the pace of tax reform and gradually reducing the direct tax burden of the middle and low income groups. The Ministry of Finance recently issued "opinions on speeding up the financial sector's administration according to law and managing finances according to law", indicating that it will further promote tax reform and improve the tax system. At the same time, we should further improve tax legislation combined with tax reform.

Perfecting tax system and adjusting income distribution

For the direction of tax reform, Yang Tao believes that we should proceed from two levels. Technically, due to the high tax rate of our main taxes, value-added tax, business tax and consumption tax need to be optimized to avoid duplication and to change the tax pattern based on turnover tax. Rather than at the technical level, the tax system should maintain the structural tax cuts previously proposed by the state. On the one hand, in the initial distribution process, it is necessary to make further profits for enterprises, especially small and medium-sized enterprises. On the other hand, it is appropriate to give profits to individuals and consumers in the initial distribution process.

Wang Zhaocai, deputy director of the Ministry of Finance and finance, agrees. "Our country's tax categories are basically related to enterprises, corporate taxes account for 85% of tax revenue, so the status of corporate tax in China's fiscal revenue is a very important body." Wang Zhaocai said that VAT is gradually expanding its business tax, which aims to reduce taxes for enterprises. But at the same time, he also said that if we suddenly reduce the tax of enterprises, this is not realistic for our country. At present, personal income tax has been reduced by a large proportion. More middle and low income groups will pay less taxes and the actual disposable income will also increase.

"The overall decline in tax burden is what we expect, and the part that will be reduced will be paid to the people." Sun Yudong said that we should speed up the process of China's new round of tax reform, and effectively increase the happiness index of taxpayers, which will have a more positive impact on China's economic development and social life.