| Since the Reform and Opening Up,China's economic construction has received an achievement that attracts worldwide attention.In recent 30 years,the economy of China continues to maintain a double-digit growth rate and the economic aggregate doubles in every seven years,which is unprecedented in human history.But we should clearly recognize that with the acceleration of the aging of population,the economic growth pattern propelled by a high saving rate,high investment and cheap labor cannot be maintained anymore.The acceleration of the aging of population has made the negative influence of the changes in population structure surface.According to the statistics of National Statistics Bureau,in 2014,the population of labor force from 15 to 64 years old have shown a decrease for the first time,which to a certain degree,manifests the negative influence brought about by the aging tendency of population.Tax system is the main instrument for the government to raise public capital,and a coercive institutional restraint guaranteed by the state political power.As a type of productive relations,the scale of the tax system and the constitution of the tax institution have to be eventually restricted by the level of productivity.Therefore,scholars,from the perspective of the adaptability of macro tax burden and the economic growth,as well as the tax system's adaptation towards economic growth,carry out plentiful researches on the problem of tax system.However,on the whole,the researches on the influence of the aging tendency towards the change in the tax system are relatively less.Seen from the neo-classical production function,the growth rate of national income equals to the increase rate of the laboring population times labor income share plus the growth rate of capital times capital income share and plus the progress rate of science and technology.Within a short period of time when there is no substantial improvement in science and technology,the decrease in laboring population will lead to the decline of the growth rate of national income.Therefore,the acceleration of the aging of population shown in production function will lead to a change in the output scale and the combination of production factors for a nation.As production factors,the change in laboring force and structure will eventually lead to a change in the scale of the revenue and the structure of the tax system.Thus it can be seen that the acceleration of the aging of population will influence the productivity level and productivity structure of a nation,while such an influence will be conducted to the design of the tax system through the level of productivity and the productivity structure,thereby promoting the institutional change of the nation.Therefore,under the background of the aging of population,the study of the influence of population structure on the progression of the tax system has both theoretical and practical significances.This paper,under the background of aging of population,uses the change in the structure of population as the starting point and investigates the influence of the change in population structure on the level of macro tax burden and tax system.In terms of the macro tax burden level,the rigid growth of retirement pension tax fees marks the most direct cause for promoting theadvance of the nation's macro tax burden level.Seen from the makeup of the tax system,despite how specific tax categories are defined in reality,taxes are eventually levied upon three major “implicit tax bases”: labour,capital and consumption.Under the influence of aging of population,the relative or absolute decrease in the supply of the labor force will give rise to the chain reaction in the supply of labor force,capital accumulation and consumer demand,thereby influencing the evolution of the makeup of the tax system.This paper studies the evolution of the tax system from the perspective of the aging of population innovatively.First,the paper,on the basis of comparing the general course of aging of population in China and the world,reveals the uniqueness and causes in the course of aging of population in China.China's aging of population process exhibits features including a large total volume,a speeding progress,high aging and precedence over the level of economic development.A long-term practice of the one-child policy is the main cause of these characteristics being formed.The most major aspects of the progression of the tax system are macro tax burden level and the makeup of the tax system.Seen from population structure,the change in population structure mainly influences macro tax burden level with the level of the retirement pension tax fees.Tax bases are one of the major elements influencing the makeup of tax system.In the actual sense,capital,labour and consumption constitute three “implicit tax bases” for tax revenue.Therefore,this paper illustrates the influence of aging of population on the evolution of tax system from macro tax burden and tax bases.Since this paper aims to analyze the change in population structure on the evolution of tax system from the perspective of aging of population,the paper defines the macro tax burden caliber into two parts including pension social insurance and general tax revenue.From the macro level of tax burden,under the condition when general tax revenue does not change,the rigid growth of retirement pension tax fees caused by the aging of population is the main cause for the growth of macro tax burden.From the perspective of tax base,the aging of population leads to a lower supply of labour,the decrease in labour participation and the decrease in the productivity of labour,thereby leading to the shrinkage of the tax base.According to the life cycle theory,the relative decrease in the labour force population,the relative increase of pure consuming population will lower the saving rate of a nation,the level of which directly influences the speed of capital accumulation,thereby leading to the relative increase of the capital tax base of a nation and the relative increase of the consumptive tax base.On this basis,this paper analyzes the influence of the aging of population upon the evolution of the tax system in China based on macro tax burden and tax base.The increase of tax burden in China has been exceeding the speed of the economic growth for a long time and from the two perspectives of the constitution of macro tax burden,the increase of retirement pension tax fees is obviously faster than the increase of general tax revenue.This has become the significant causes driving the overall increase of macro tax burden level in China.At the same time,viewed from the perspective of the macro tax burden structural change after China enters the “new normal”,although the increase of retirement pension tax fees experiences a certain slowdown,its falling range is apparently lower than the decrease of general tax revenue.Secondly,the level of economic development is the most major element influencing the evolution of the tax system.Aging of population,as a significant factor influencing the economy,acts upon economic society with the joint force of consumption,savings,capital and labour productivity,etc.Therefore,most scholars,through adopting mathematical or computer model,reachthe conclusion on the influence of the aging of population on a certain variable(such as consumption,investment).Therefore,this paper uses the neo-classical growth model as its framework,economic efficiency as the principle and analyzes the influence of the aging of population on the evolution of the tax system from macro tax burden and the choice of tax base.This paper makes a distinction between workingpopulation and retiring population in the Solow model,and assumes that the government levy taxes upon output with a fixed tax rate(representing the macro tax burden level).The result of the model shows that under a steady state,the degree of aging of population is negatively correlated with the macro tax burden level,and from the makeup of the macro tax burden assumed by the model,pension guarantee tax fees have a trading off and taking turns relationship with general revenue.However,the influence of the degree of population aging is uncertain towards the output.If the capital released by the aged population who has retreated from production can be fully used by economic entities,a promotion will be played upon the accumulation of unit per capita effective capital,and its function will be influenced by the level of macro tax burden.Based on these,this paper,through the investigation of the evolution of OECD countries with a relatively serious level of population aging,and a relatively mature tax system,analyzes the negative influence macro tax burden has on economic growth.Therefore,OECD countries,under the premise of maintaining an overall stability in macro tax burden,reduces general tax burden level and increases the tax burden level of social pension;since the savings rate in the Solow model is an external variable independent of economic growth,which makes the application of this model restricted and to the disadvantage of the analysis of tax base upon the base of this model.Therefore,this paper,introduces population structure and revenue variable in Ramsey model with endogenous savings rate to analyze the influence of the aging of population on the constitution of the tax system with the life-span of human beings as the variable.The result of the model shows that: with the level of science and technology unchanged,the increased tax levied upon capital,labour and consumption tax base will all reduce the efficiency of economic growth.And under the condition when other taxes do not change,the levy of consumption taxes reduce the relative price of future consumption taxes,making people more inclined to engage in a consumption with a future orientation,which is good for savings.Under thecondition when other taxes are not changed,the improvement of labour wage tax rate will reduce savings.Due to the heterogeneity of population in the OLG model,this paper further constructs six phases of intertemporal overlapping generation model,and extracts statistics in our country to conduct a dynamic stimulation.The result shows that compared with capital,labour and consumption taxes,the negative influence over economic growth could be manifested as taxation on capital?taxation on labour?taxation on consumption.From a theoretical analysis basis,the paper compares and analyzes the structural change in tax system in OECD countries with a relatively higher degree of aging of population,and a relatively high level of economic development.From the variation tendency of the structure of the tax system,the acceleration of aging of population and the increase of retirement pension tax fees will continue to increase.Retirement pension tax fees are normally paid by enterprises and individuals,which to a certain degree occupies the tax base of income taxes,thereby creating a tendency for the relative decrease for the proportion of income tax revenue occupying total tax revenue.Compared with the rigid growth of retirement pension tax fees,the variation of income tax and commodity and service tax exhibits a trading off and taking turns tendency.An interesting phenomenon is that through comparing the same income level,same aging tendency and same social security tax in OECD countries,this paper finds that the higher the proportion of the commodity and service tax mainly taken by value-added tax,the higher the actual GDP appreciation ratio,which makes the proportion of the income tax higher and the actual GDP increase rate lower.From the changing tendency of major tax categories,with the increase of the course of the aging of population,corporate income tax in various countries exhibit a declining tendency whereas the ratio of individual income tax exhibit an undulating slight decrease.The ratio of commodity service tax exhibits an undulating slight increase.In the constitution of commodity service tax,the proportion of value-added tax has not changed while consumption tax and environmental protection taxes have a relative faster increase.In the end,combined with the above researches,the paper proposes a few constructive suggestions towards the orientation of tax reform under the background of China's aging population.The course of the aging of population in China is not in concordance with economic growth in China,and from the characteristics of the course of the aging of population in China,the rapid aging of population in China will possibly aggregate its negative influence on economic development.Therefore,in order to respond to the possible disadvantages that the rapid aging of population in China might bring to economic growth,the tax system reform in China should adopt an efficiency first principle,and the concrete route is: in order to fully make use of the window phase of demographic dividend in China from 2015 to 2035,maintain the growth of investment and export at a relatively high speed.For this end,this paper proposes to moderately reduce corporate income tax to guarantee corporations having ample capital accumulation to satisfy the need for its transformation and upgrading;speed up individual income's transition from a classified collection to an integrated collection and rationally define the deduction items;lower the reduced rate of value-added tax to guarantee the basic life demands of aged population;increase the tax rate of consumption tax and expand the ambit of charge of consumption tax and guide consumption;slowly increase the tax rate of resource tax and increase the comprehensive utilization of resources;set up new tax categories such as inheritance tax and environmental tax to make up for the inadequacies of retirement pension capital.The possible innovation of this paper lies in first,different from other researches that pay attention to macro tax burden or tax system's influence over economic growth,this paper analyzes the general tendency of tax system evolution,which might be a new exploration;second,most researches on the selection efficiency of the tax system ignores the variable of population structure to a certain extent,while this research adopts efficiency as its center and population structural change as the most significant influential factor. |
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