The Research On The Taxpayer’s Supervision Right For Revenue

What is the main route for the research on taxation law and the reform on revenuepractices since the public finance model was initiated in China? Why do the taxpayer’s rightsfail to be protected? What is the most effective means to promote China’s constitutionconstruction? What is the most important factor to enforce “rule of rule” in the domain ofpublic finance expenditure? The above-listed questions have all the while obsessed thedecision-makers as well as the relevant scholars who are dedicated to the studies of tax andfinance law. The taxpayer’s supervision right concerning the government’s expenditure shallbe regarded as the footstone for the theory of tax law in the existing system hereof,particularly under which the attention paid to the taxpayer’s supervision right would breakthrough the predicament arising from the current system and hereupon many practicalproblems would be readily resolved. As a matter of fact, the taxpayer’s supervision rightconcerning the government’s expenditure is not only the footstone issue in tax law but alsothe underlying point required in the constitutional countries.The taxation relation is deemed as the central relationship between citizens and state inmodern countries, which therefore is supposed to be the core ideology to resolve theunbalance arising from the relationship between state and citizens as well as to harmonize theabove relation in terms of the taxpayer’s supervision right concerning the government’sexpenditure. Thus the taxpayers’ right concerning the government’s expenditure is supposedto be the essential systematic arrangement to protect the interests of taxpayers as well as toprevent the government from abusing its power. In a word, it is of great significance toestablish the ideal and construct the legal system of the taxpayer’s supervision rightconcerning government’s expenditure.Apart form the introductory and the concluding chapters, the full text is divided into sixparts. The first part and the second part focus on the philosophy of supervision right itself, soas to resolve the problem of “why the supervision right is appealed” and “what is thesupervision right”. Because the taxpayer’s supervision right reflects the essence of therelationship between citizens and the state, which belongs to the constitutional issues, itshould be placed in a macroscopic view. That is to say, the taxpayer’s supervision right shouldbe examined under the frame of constitutional government. The first chapter which clarifies the origin of the taxpayer’s supervision right, is the logic starting point. In this part, theresearch of taxpayer’s supervision right is developed along this train: theconstitutionalism-taxation-taxpayer’s rights-taxpayer’s right of supervision. Firstly, theconcept of constitutionalism of which core connotation is supervising and constraining thestate power is analysed. Secondly, from the tax and constitutional relationship, the concept oftaxation is analyzed. The revolution of taxation concept is actually a history of theconstitution. In industrial countries and nationalism social stage, taxation to the taxpayer isonly a mandatory obligation, not any right. To the taxation state and a higher level ofconstitutional state stage, the taxation to taxpayers is regarded as the payment to the state topurchase the public products and service. In the context of public finance, which regardsachieving social and public interests as its goals and requires taxpayers to participate in thefinance process, the construction of the idea and the implementation of legal system of thetaxpayer’s supervision right are demanded.Chapter One presents a discussion of the taxpayer’s supervision right in the context ofthe constitutionalism, while Chapter Two is devoted to the analysis of the essential meaningswith respect to the taxpayer’s supervision right. Firstly, the taxpayer’s supervision right iscomposed of the right to know, the right to participate in revenue decision-making and theright to request. Secondly, the functions of the taxpayer’s supervision right are as follows: itcan guide the government to expend the revenue legally, promote the taxpayer’s compliancedegree, and promote the constitutional construction in China. Thirdly, in order to implementthe supervision right, the legal system of supervision right should be researched. The legalsystem of the supervision right consists of the following three basic categories: legalrelationship, legal action and legal responsibility.The first two chapters provide some guidance for the construction of the implementationmechanism of supervision right. Along the train of finding problems and resolving problems,the following research is developed. Firstly, four problems in the existing legal systems arerevealed, namely, the artificial division of taxation and revenue expenditure stages, thelacking of systematic design for supervision legal system, the fuzzy and maneuverablerealization of taxpayer’s supervision right and the low efficiency in the process ofimplementation. The last problem usually leads to the fact tht taxpayers can not effectivelysupervise the revenue policy making and execution results. Then from the perspective of law,a further study of exploring the causes of these problems is developed: One is the influence of legal instrumentalism, thus the value of supervision legal system is neglected. Another is thefuzzy cognition of the taxpayer’s supervision right. The last one is the improper law methodin revenue policy legalization.After analysing of the problems and the causes, the solution is provided. Firstly, to solvethe problems of existing legal system, the supervision legal system should be constructedunder the guidance of structure-balanced theoretical framework. The systematic degree of thesupervision legal system should be improved from the legislative pedigree. Different levels oftaxpayer’s supervision legislation should be set to regulate the content of the principle ofdefining, to prevent the practice of legal validity conflict. Secondly, to solve the problem ofthe lacking of basic system, the clear revenue supervision goals and basic principles, whichguide the concrete construction of the legal system, should be determined.At the completion of the legal system design of revenue supervision, according to thefinancial characteristics, Chapter Five focuses on the construction of specific systems. Firstly,to solve the problem of the artificial division of taxation and revenue expenditure stages,earmarked tax system can be applied. Earmarked taxes are provided for some publiclysupplied goods and services with the properties of private goods, which reflect a directrelationship between costs and benefits, through which taxpayers or their representatives areable to compare costs and benefits for each budget activity. In this way, government andtaxpayers can form more direct and explicit contractual relationship, realizing the function ofcoordination and the stabilization of taxpayer’s expectation and transmission of signals.Reference to the theory of “breaching responsibility” in Contract Law, this paper putsforward the principle of legal responsibility allocation and the correspondent legalresponsibility, to realize the taxpayers’ right to the control of the disposition of tax revenues.Secondly, to solve the problem of the low efficiency in the process of implementation,reforming and reconstructing the existing revenue supervision legal system is necessary. TheBudget Law should be reformed to promote the supervision efficiency of the NationalPeople’s Congress, and provide more ways for taxpayers to participate in the supervision ofbudget acts. The Audit Law should be reconstructed to realize the auditing independence,audit publication, and finally the realization of the goals of performance audit.Under the conditions of the existing political environment, the taxpayer’s litigationsystem is more efficient and a more direct way for taxpayers to implement his supervisionright, so the litigation system should be established as soon as possible. In contrast to the low efficiency of the legislative supervision, the judicial supervision should be highly efficient.With the changes and development of the modern and industrial society, justice is becomingmore and more active. Under the conditions that there are no legal provisions for the legalsubjects’ accountability, China’s Supreme Court can set the legal responsibility by means ofjudicial interpretation. According to the principle of comparative advantages based on theknowledge division and judicial rationality, a professional court should be set up to cope withthe taxpayer’s litigation.