| The relationship between state power and the market is the core issue of economics, politics,and law.There are many researching approaches on this issue.This thesis focuses on how commercial activities and state taxation achieve effective balance.Commercial activities are profit-making economic activities targeting the market with currency as a tool via commodities and service supply,which distinguish from family operation aiming at self consumption at this point.Whether a commercial activity is successful or not is to be valued by profits.To determine the amount of profits,we have to fix all transaction conditions in operation in the form of contract to be implemented in a compelling way,calculate all costs precisely.This work of calculating costs and profits via currency is exposed by rationality in commercial activities,that is,the nature to be calculated or expected.Rationality here mainly refers to "purpose rationality" in Weber's theory,that is,to an established purpose,which is most effective,and the more effective it is to achieve established goal,the more rationality it is.Commercial activities evolve from simple form to complex form,from low-grade to high-grade,from luxuries trade in early times to mass production for the public in industrial times,which is a process of upgrading the rationality.In western early trade,the subjects in commerce mainly are individuals, family,and simple partnership;for the high profits luxuries earn,there's no need to calculate costs precisely;for there's no need to allocate profits to the public investors,therefore there's no need to do precise profits calculation.Simple mathematics could meet the requirement for operation in these commercial activities;therefore the rationality is very low in this stage. With market extension,more competition and technology progress,the organization form and trading tools in commercial activities are more complex,there's a need to collect large amount of capital to invest in mass production machines for the purpose of meeting public market needs.Under this condition,the enterprises have to precisely calculate and control cost to keep competition advantage for the purpose of surviving in the market;to allocate profits to the public investors and attract potential investors and creditors by comparatively high profits,the enterprises have to calculate profits precisely;the more precise an enterprise calculate its costs and profits,the more successful it is in market competition.Under the condition of competitive market,the selling price of an enterprise is restricted by its competitor;therefore profits mainly come form the control on costs,while the costs in an enterprise are determined by the price of production factors such as labor,capital,land,and the management level.To make these factors to be calculated,the enterprises have to determine corresponding trading conditions in the form of contracts,which makes a highly formalized commercial legal system and improved bookkeeping technology.Formalized commercial legal system is the achievement and protection of commercial activities rationality;the more non-personalized nature trading has,the more necessity this protection is.The greatest achievement of commercial rationalized activities is highly exposed by modern industrial stock company which unifies labor market,capital market,currency market,land market and products market,forming a highly complex trading net.The sales, interests,bonus,salary,profits and capital income it supplies become very convenient taxation objects.In a long time,the state faced the difficulty to evaluate taxation objects in the process of taxation,while the commercial activities rationalization provides taxation convenience,thus lowering state taxation cost.Stock companies aiming at collecting funds from the public have to prove its attraction in capital market by reporting to the shareholders and potential investors their profits.Meanwhile,hiding profits do not meet the companies' interest,that is,there's an incentive for the company to "tell the truth",while the "truth" is what state taxation need.In consequence,commercial activities rationalization has the effect of improving state taxation;this is the first proposition to be proved in this thesis.State taxation is an important cost factor in commercial activities,no matter direct tax or indirect tax ultimately is paid by the enterprises from their currency revenue,which becomes debts to the state,therefore they are reflected in the calculation of the profits.Enterprises have to carry out cost-profit calculation precisely,which makes it a necessity to determine tax to be paid under expectation.To reach this,the following measures have to be taken:all state public expenses come from taxation with no apportions allowed;the tax objects,criterion,tax category,tax term and means have to be determined definitely;unnecessary check,question and blackmail have to be excluded from state taxation;tax disputes proposed by the taxpayers have to be remedied effectively.In all,the duty to pay tax has to be determined at all levels, which makes the enterprises precisely calculate their tax,thus makes the rationalized commercial activities based on cost-profit calculation carrying out smoothly.Luxuries trade in middle ages and monopoly in mercantile system brings high profit,which could countervail the negative influence caused by state arbitrary taxation,and commercial activities exist for this reason.While in modern times when competitive capitalism began to carry out mass production for public market,state arbitrary taxation becomes intolerable obstacle for rationalized commercial activities,therefore major west powers began their capitalist revolution,carried out their struggle against state taxation control,eventually formed the country into a "tax state" aiming at providing protection and justice,which made the market system established.Therefore,regulate state taxation in a normative way is an important premise to make commercial activities more rationalized,which is the second proposition to be proved in this thesis.This thesis believes that via the above two proposition,the rationalization of commercial activities reduces state taxation cost,improves state taxation,while at the same time state taxation in a normative way does good to the rationalization of commercial activities, therefore commercial forces and state power reaches efficient balance.This is the historical experience since middle ages,in which standardization of state taxation is the key institutional breakthrough.Massive commercial operation existed in China and west,such as farmer in ancient Rome and France before revolution,and the salt dealers in Ming and Qing dynasty, but these commercial activities are very dependent on state power.Competitive commercial activities by means of providing commodities and services for the market occur since modern times in western society.Market exchange could only be carried out when the private property could be protected well while state taxation is against private property.The essence of sate taxation is to change part of the private property into public funds by political power; therefore unrestricted taxation will invade private property.Only by putting state taxation in a normative way could the taxpayers determine the fields and direction for public expenses via democratic procedure,determine tax level within this fields,make tax laws,and ensure the normative performance of state taxation,which could in turn make tax obligation on private property determined and safe.In modern society,rationalized commercial activities is a right-intensive and contract-intensive business,it is based on a series of complex credit trading,to ensure the credit relationship stable and expectable the state has to provide legal protection,for it has scale advantage in this aspect.The institutional arrangement to exchange tax for protection makes the tax obligation due.Based on the above knowledge,this thesis carries out its argument on the mutual influence between commercial activities and state taxation.The thesis consists of five chapters.Chapterâ… is to define a basic category and propose an analysis scheme on transaction cost.Sectionâ… learns from Weber,first defines "the rationalization of commercial activities",pointing out that it refers that commercial activities are based on calculation of currency and capital,the degree of rationalization depends on the degree to be calculated. Currency is the best calculating tool in commercial activities,for only currency could evaluate different goods,and make different goods compare easily.With the expansion of commercial activities,the fields to be calculated by currency enlarged with an increasing rationalization. Sectionâ…¡reviews the evolution of state taxation since middle ages,pointing out that the state taxation is to be improved under low level rationalization in commercial activities.Sectionâ…¢proposes an analysis scheme on transaction cost,putting the state taxation as a trading relationship between state and taxpayers,pointing that stat taxation is restricted by transaction cost which consists of defining costs for taxation and the agency costs in tax collection.This transaction cost have a close relationship with commercial activities rationalization, commercial activities with a much higher rationalization provides a value to be calculated for objects of taxation,thus reduces the defining cost on taxation and the agency cost.Chapterâ…¡discusses the commercial activities and state taxation in middle ages.The dominant economic form in middle ages is traditional natural economy,but developed commercial activities occurred in areas with weak traditional forces.Section I first analyzes the economic types under multi-taxation and its corresponding taxation form,pointing out that natural economy corresponds with a taxation form of kain and service.Sectionâ…¡describes the commercial activities originating along Mediterranean Sea penetrated to traditional economy,making the transition from kain to currency tax,and further causing the preliminary transition of state taxation.In this period,the prominent character of western civilization is the rising of cities.Cities gained autonomy by every kind of means,cities developing modern financial tools such as consumption tax,property tax,national debts,and state bank based on wealth calculated by currency.State taxation is improved based on rationalized commercial activities.Sectionâ…¢discusses that there's no unified authority to curb the commercial activities under the conditions of decentralization and taxation separation caused by feudalism,therefore commerce flourished in Italian cities along Mediterranean Sea together with the genius production of commercial tool such as double entry bookkeeping method,note,bank,bonds,partnership,agency,which made the base for modern commercial civilization.On the other hand,the decentralization in local places caused confused currency system,feudal kings and seigneurs abusing taxation on passing,forced borrowing and arbitrarily reducing the content in currency for financial interests,which became the greatest block for commercial activities rationalization.Therefore,the further development for commerce made the unity of governments and taxation in great need.Chapterâ…¢examines the commercial activities and state taxation in monarchy states. Sectionâ… introduces the background for new times.First,the king as the biggest feudal host, with the help of taxes from commerce,the king eradicated the feudal decentralization, strengthened the kingship,unified taxation,metrology and currency system,further unified domestic market with the help of taxes from commerce,applied mercantile system to give both emphasis on state interests and commercial interests,which laid base for commercial activities to be carried out in a country.Second,for the reason of severe competition between national states,war scale being extended,a highly effective taxation system is in great need, therefore major countries applied the mercantile policy giving attention to both national interests and commercial interests,which made the commercial activities to be carried out within the border of national countries.To suit this,the commercial unwritten laws bearing the nature of international feature were nationalized,and the commercial law was endowed with state power which was originally sustained by commercial communities.The trading safety of the extended non-personalized commercial activities was supplied by state power. Sectionâ…¡discusses the new development of rationalization for commercial activities,whose major achievement is to introduce he commercial system and techniques developed in early city countries into the national states.Therefore corresponding changes occurred in state taxation,and modern commercial tax system was established gradually.Sectionâ…¢discusses different route applied by Britain and France and the different consequences in dealing with the relationship between commercial activities and state taxation,pointing out the importance of regulating state taxation in the process of commercial activities rationalization.The unity of taxation removed the district blocks for commercial activities,but private property and trading freedom were harmed by arbitral taxation,forced borrowing,seizure,and arbitral authorization on monopoly for no restriction on kingship,which led to the coming of modern tax state.Therefore Chapter IV focuses on the democratization process for taxation in Britain and US.Sectionâ… first examines the commercial activities gradually turned to industrial and commercial activities targeting the market,therefore it is increasingly important to regulate state taxation.Sectionâ…¡mainly discusses experience in Britain.In Britain, industrial and commercial class and commercialized medium and small nobles are very important political forces;they achieve control on taxation from the congress by political struggle,gradually end the monopoly by the state for the purpose of finance only,which provides institutional conditions for rationalized commercial activities.Section HI introduces US experience.The founders of US learn from the lessons of the Confederation collapse because of the deficiency in state taxation and the destruction on commerce caused by un-unified state taxation;therefore they pay more attention on the regulation on sate taxation to achieve the goal of making US as a power in industry and commerce.It is clear from the experience of the above two countries that taming taxation is a major achievement and cause for rationalization of commercial activities.Since then,democracy politics and market economy are unified under tax state.Market economy keeps vigorous for the freedom of private property rights and trading freedom,while the state reduces many kinds of intervention for financial consideration with sufficient taxes supplied by commerce.And improved taxation framework provide flexible tax tool for the state to achieve social policy goals.Based on the research on the historical evolution in western countries,the thesis examines Chinese history and reality.In sectionâ… ,the author believes that taxation without any restriction in ancient China was an important block on commercial activities rationalization,which was manifested by the suppression on living market caused by power effect and the financial market on the basis of natural economy under absolute taxation.For Chinese taxation is based on agricultural harvest economy with a low efficiency,lower degree of currency calculation,the taxation definition and tax collection are restricted by higher transaction cost and limited state financial capability.To collect tax from scattered agriculture,the state have to sustain large scale bureaucratic bodies and officers to strengthen the control on land and labor in agriculture.To compensate the tax gap from agriculture,the state sells consumption materials in a monopolized way,squeezing the residual from agriculture via fixed prices.This kind of commerce could not develop rationalized commercial activities for its profits coming from political power not from using market opportunities.This historical heritage still leaves influence on modern China.Sectionâ…¡briefly analyzes major problems in Chinese taxation in market reform,holding that tax share as most important taxation reform measures since 1949 partly solved the distribution relationship between state,enterprises and individual.This is only a solution on tax within the fields of tax,there are still large amount of state revenue beyond the control of normative taxation.The state revenue beyond the regulation of laws forms an obstacle for commercial activities rationalization,therefore it is an important task for our reformation to develop our market economy,realize commercial activities rationalization and regulate state taxation.This chapter also reasons three counter measures to realize taxation standardization on legal theory.
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