Agricultural Tax Reform And Chinese Farmers’ Changes——Since The Refrom And Opening-up In1978

The problem of "Agriculture, rural development and farmers" relate the overall situation in the cause of our Party and state, as well as the historical process of socialist modernization. Farmers are a significant force in China’s social development, in which increasing farmers’income as the core of solving the tri-agricultural problem relates to national economy development and social stability. Since China’s reform and opening up, agricultural tax reform as the main line in rural reform drives the progress of lightening farmers’ burden and increasing production. On this basis, this paper reviews the reform of agricultural tax system and the historical change of Chinese farmers.The article is composed of two parts.Part one using the adjustment of leadership of the communist party of China’s agricultural tax policy as links in chronological order, longitudinally and systematically studied the reform of the agriculture tax as well as the direction of agricultural policy in the post-agricultural-taxes times.Chapter one briefly reviewed the Chinese agricultural tax reform and the changes of the agricultural policy process under the leadership of our party in different historical periods.Chapter two was based on the adjustment of agricultural tax policy in the last eighties and nineties, not only systematically reviewing the rural tax and fee reform which was aim to regulate the rural tax and fee system and lighten farmers’burden at the beginning of this century, but also briefly analyzing the necessity, feasibility, efficiency and the significance of canceling agricultural tax.Chapter three firstly summarized the related agricultural preferential tax policies in the post-agricultural-taxes times, and analyzed the implementation conditions and paths of the urban-rural united taxation which is the integration of urban-rural tax system can achieve when the unit of rural labor production efficiency improves significantly, farmers are no longer vulnerable groups, farming is no longer a weak industry, and efficient urban-rural finance system and tax collection and administration system are established and regularized. Secondly, this chapter systematically reviewed comprehensive reforms in rural areas, which involves rural public financial system reform, administrative restructuring, and compulsory education system reform, relating to economic, political, social, cultural and other fields. It deepened and consolidated the achievement of the reform of rural taxes from the level of rural basic system, which were an important institutional innovation and social transformation as well as an important part of the agricultural tax reform process.Part two using the clue of agricultural tax reform promoting the progress of lightening farmers’burden and increasing production, illustrated the great changes among rural residents under the influence of industrialization, marketization, and urbanization in our country since reform and opening-up, mainly for farmers’ economic change, lifestyle change, production mode change and social values change.Chapter four expounded the changes of rural residents’burden and financial balance situation in the new period, and it more comprehensive displayed the changes of rural residents’economy and lifestyle since reform and opening up.First of all, through the overall and periodic mathematical analysis of farmers’ burden and financial balance, it can be seen that the burden on farmers in a fluctuant decrease, the per capital income on a volatility rise, and income within farmers’group and inter-regional in balanced condition, and then the article analyzed the different factors which contributes to changes in farmers’income. In addition, through the analysis of farmers’consumption expenditure and its structure change, it can achieve following conclusions:the farmers’consumption expenditure grew rapidly, in which the share of consumption for life necessities fell and for hedonic development rose year by year. The quality of farmers’life improved, however, the phenomenon of consumption imbalance still exists within internal farmers and different regions. Finally, through constructing a vector autoregressive (VAR) model that includes four measurable factors affecting farmers’income increase (tax burden, salary income, the family management income, and the state fiscal agriculture expenditure), it can draw the following conclusions:in the coming decades, tax burden has very little impact on farmers’income, and the state fiscal agriculture expenditure has obvious hysteresis to promote farmers’ income, meanwhile, wage income instead of family management income become the main driving force for increasing farmers’ income.Chapter five reflected the great change of the ways that farmers’ production and life in new period through the periodic analysis on surplus rural labor migration and labor market policy adjustment. In terms of the way of production, the traditional single agricultural lifestyle has turned to modern diversified operation and employment, which reflected the integration of farming, individual operation and urban employment. In terms of the way of life, the traditional self-sufficient small farmers’ life has turned to modern diversified life-style. In addition, comparing the income between urban and rural residents since1978, and analyzing the institutional and non-system factors that lead to widen income gap, it can reach the following conclusions:the household registration system is the main reason that contributes to expend the income gap between urban and rural areas. After the reformation of rural taxation system finished its historical mission that decreases farmers’ burden, the new current mission is to increase farmers’income. The most effective way of narrowing the income gap between urban and rural areas and realizing individual income growth is to continue deepening reform of the household registration system, to eliminate all kinds of obstacles of farmers’"urbanization", to promote the free flow of rural surplus labor force, to achieve the optimal configuration of urban and rural labor force, and then to improve the productivity of rural labor force through drastic reduction in rural population.Chapter six revealed the changes of the rural residents’values in the new period, which is moving from tradition to modern gradually. The traditional small-scale peasant consciousness mainly performed like authority worship that is lack of subject consciousness, closed and conservative classic mindset, and the satisfaction of life philosophy. As the pace of reform and opening up, the farmers’ self-sufficient small production way gets fundamental change, and values interlace and collide between the traditions and modern, which mainly shows as the constantly growth on the subject consciousness; increasingly open in family marriage; the desalination on the concepts of autism and conservatism, the enhancement on the senses of open, competition and utilitarian; the desalination on the concepts of patriarchal clan system and superstition, the enhancement on the senses of science, democracy and the rule of law. In terms of the influence factors that lead to farmers’ values change, this is due to the improvement of farmers’ income, on the other hand is due to the diversity of farmers’ production and living ways. In addition, through the analysis of the effect of farmers’ value change, it can be seen that farmers’ values not only reflect the farmers’ cognition to the social fact, mapping out the development trend of social reform, but also restructure deepening in self-adjustment, which plays promote or hinder role in the interactions of social system and reform mechanism. At last, this paper put forward several methods to promote peasants’ values and form a virtuous cycle for personal development, such as strengthening the spirit-assistant for peasants, guiding peasants to set up the correct values, this can avoid the emergence of Double Matthew effect on economic income and values among peasant group.