Study On American Real Estate Tax

The real estate tax system of United States is much more complete than other countries in the world, as the system has become stable and mature after hundred years of development and improvement. So we select this most representative system, and attempt to analyze its important role in the organization of local revenue, optimization of resource allocation and equity of income distribution, and to make comprehensive analysis to the real estate tax system of maintain section in China, and to improve the real estate tax system to solve the existing problems such as local financial difficulties, high housing prices and unreasonable supply of affordable housing.The American government adopts a classification system of financial management to organize the local fiscal revenue. Federal, state and local governments have their own range of authority and financial power. State and local governments are mainly responsible for the local education, transport and welfare facilities in fiscal expenditure, which three areas account for the most proportion. Huge governance spending required state and local governments must have corresponding revenue. American state and local governments raise their local fiscal revenue by tax, user fees and the intergovernmental allowance. Tax becomes the main source because of its mandatory, nonidentity and immobility. Comparing with sales tax, consumption tax. income tax and other local taxes, real estate tax has its own advantages as regional and immovable tax base, broad tax fund, steady tax revenue and convenience for local collection. So the American government put the real estate tax as state and local governments' main tax, which plays a very important role in solving the local financial difficulties and economy development while one of its key functions is organization of local fiscal revenue.The reasonable allocation of real estate resources can realize through market mechanism and government regulation mechanism. Whether the two mechanisms are realized by the real estate prices, and therefore estate prices become the important economic lever to realize resource optimizing allocation. In the market mechanism. the influence factors of real estate prices include demand and supply, spatial configuration, real estate cycle and the real estate bubble, etc. The government regulation mechanism mainly includes monetary policy and fiscal policy. In addition to the relevant land policy, the realization of the fiscal policy depends on collection of the real estate tax. The mechanism of American real estate tax in regulating the real estate price and optimizing resource allocation is that:firstly, under the pressure of real estate tax burden, in order to reduce the holdings cost and improve net benefit of real estate investment, the holder has to utilize the idle land and housing fully and reasonably, which guarantee the supply quantity of real estate; Secondly, real estate tax in holding link will increase the holding costs, change price expect from investors and the income flow of assets, increase the investment risk and investment cost, cause the change of real estate prices, holding time and trading volume; Finally, the real estate tax can change supply and demand of real estate and housing consumption choice, optimize combination relationship between the real estate investment and other capital investments, affect overall demand and supply in real estate market, optimize the allocation of resources.American unfair distribution is experiencing outer-plane changes, from somew hat ease to rising, and from rising to gentling. There are various reasons in unfair distribution, such as salary growth gap, different racial income gap and possessing wealth gap, which are the three most major aspects. In America the income distri bution means include administrative means, legal means and economic measures, and the taxation policy and social security policy of economic means play an important role to realize fair goal of income distribution. We found that direct tax has stronger power in income distribution through the analysis of change of taxpayers income and Gini coefficient between pre-tax and after-tax in recent years in America.Comparing with the federal and state personal income tax and social security tax, the estate tax has small proportion in direct taxation and has weak power in regulating the gap between rich and poor, but the unique superiority of real estate tax, such as immovability, flexibility and not secretiveness, make it become the important means to regulate the gap between rich and poor.American real estate tax is able to organize local fiscal revenue, optimize the allocation of resources and equate income distribution. These functions play an important role in promoting the healthy development of the American real estate market, and perfecting the treasury system and the tax system. But American real estate tax system is not spotless, while it has its own problems, such as local fiscal dependence on the real estate tax excessively, people unbearable heavy taxes, lack ability of adjustment allocation and high tax collection cost. These problems need as soon as improved and perfected, and the specific measures include rationally dividing power and balance relations between financial revenue and expenditure, enriching tax preferences forms and reducing overall tax burden, equaling level of public service and playing tax progressive functions, simplifying the real estate tax system and enhancing the efficiency of tax collection.At present there are also all sorts of problems in our country real estate tax. such as not according with the request of economic development, light retention, heavy circulation, not reasonable design of real estate tax system, not perfected real estate evaluation system. These problems cause the estate tax very weak in meeting local financial needs, inhibition of real estate speculation and regulating social rich-poor gap. Therefore, finding the root of China's real estate tax system problem and putting forward opinion and suggestion are imperative. Our country should adopt the principle of American real estate tax "wide tax base, low tax rates, simplified tax items", and seek reforms in tax elements design, tax collection, corresponding measures and establishing performance evaluation system. In addition our country should combine reform with practical phenomenon and use real estate tax theory to solve the problems, such as financial difficulties, high housing prices and unreasonable supply of affordable housing.