Estimates Of The Burden Of Rural Residents And Tax Reform

China is a developing country with a duality economy. In line with economic development, agriculture is still the base of the national economy, since the agriculture sector has made a significant contribution to the national economy in such aspects as products, markets and capitals. It could be safely said that the peasantry problem remains the chief one of "Chinese problems", and that rural economic problem is still the most important one of China economic problems. On one hand, since the foundation of new China, agriculture and peasantry living condition have been greatly improved, while on the other hand, problems in agriculture and peasantry burden have always been a spotlighted problem. Particularly since 1990's, the agricultural and rural problems and the peasantry burdens are placed before us, since the agricultural development has slowered down, peasantry burden has been aggravated, and social problems in rural area have been given prominence to. There are many factors related to these problems. But the taxation & charge system, or in a broader sense, the distribution system and policy in rural area, is one of the most important reasons.To begin with, this thesis provides an analysis of peasantry burden based on its economic connotation. Then the methods to measure the total level of peasantry burden have been discussed, and the positive conclusion of peasantry burden is drawn. And what's more, the institutional causes of the peasantry burden have been studied. Finally, out of our discussion about the experiences and lessons from a historical view, the object sketch of the tax & charge system is brought forward.The thesis consists of six chapters:In the first chapter, the connotation, the content and measuring of peasantry burden are discussed. As our definition, peasantry burden is the offering of labor to the society without any reward, which is regarded as the problem of peasantry labor distribution. Peasantry burden falls into two categories: the explicit burden and the implicit burden, and the later includes the scissors cross and indirect tax. Generally, the positive study of peasantry burden focuses on the explicit burden. Our attention is paid to the implicit burden, and the comparable labor force method and input-output table are employed to measure scissors cross and indirect tax burden respectively. Some concepts are clarified in this chapter.The second chapter is of positive study about the peasantry burden. First the average earning of peasantry and NDP data of industries in rural area is adjusted according to relative data. Second, the explicit burden and scissors cross are computed. Finally, the indirect tax burden (with tax shifting completely and partially) is computed with 1997's input-output table. On the whole, the burden of economy unit in rural area is very heavy, and the burden is heavier especially for agriculture producer, in which the legal burden just covers a small portion. The structure of peasantry burden is analyzed in this chapter.The third chapter is about institutional reasons of aggravating peasantry burden. There exists an inherent mechanism in current distribution system that transferswealth from rural area to city, or from underdeveloped areas to developed areas. The current fiscal federalism concentrates the fiscal revenue to the upper level government, so the lowest level government has not enough capacity to carry out their responsibility. In fact, the fiscal federalism is an incomplete fiscal federalism whose revenue cannot meet its necessary expense. Another reason is that weaknesses exist in public goods provision system, such as problems of provision decision policy, cost sharing and public goods producing. Other reasons, such as the lowest level government's expansion and impropriate government behaviors, are also analyzed in this chapter.The fourth chapter covers the historical experiences and lessons about public finance and taxation administration of Song dynasty, Ming dynasty and Qing dynasty of ancient China. Taxation systems of thes...