On The Protective Improvement Of Taxpayers' Rights

With the coming of the times of rights, Taxpayers'rights have become the world topic. The protection of taxpayers'rights, as the product of democracy and ruling by law, has been increasingly attached great importance by all the countries in the world. While emphasizing that the taxpayers should carry out obligations by law, the foreign developed countries explicitly stipulate the rights that the taxpayers should enjoy in law and take active and effective measures to assure the realization of the taxpayers'rights. With the gradual improvement of the legal construction, the protection of the taxpayers'rights has also been increasingly strengthened in China. However, due to the history and reality, there exists a gap between the protection of the taxpayers'rights of our country and that of the foreign developed countries. In this paper, started from the concept, characteristics and makeup of the taxpayers'rights, the present situation of the protection of the taxpayers'rights of our country is analyzed, a comparative research is given on the situations of the protection of the taxpayers'rights at home and abroad and then the assumption of improving the protection of the taxpayers'rights is presented in the level of operation. Not only the taxpayers'rights system should be improved and the taxpayers'rights should be explicitly standardized but also the effective protective mechanism should be established and the protective measures should be enhanced, thus assuring the realization of the taxpayers'rights. The paper is divided into four chapters. In Chapter 1, the introduction of the taxpayers'rights is made, and the concept, characteristics and makeup of the taxpayers'rights are dealt with. Based on the ideas in the analytic field, the taxpayers'rights are defined in the level of operation and its concept is given. The taxpayers'rights refer to the rights another person is required to conduct or not and the protection that such rights assure, enjoyed by the doer who directly bears the taxpaying obligations by law in the tax legal relations to a nation and the taxation agency. As far as the characteristics of the taxpayers'rights are concerned, in the paper, it is thought that the correct understanding of the specialty, variety, reality and conditionality as well as universality of the taxpayers'rights is helpful to the better protection of the taxpayers'rights. As of the makeup of the taxpayers'rights, in accordance with the debtor-creditor relationship between the taxpayers and the nation and collection-payment relation of taxation between the taxpayers and the taxation agency, the taxpayers'rights are divided into the rights in the macroscopic sense and the rights in the microscopic sense. In Chapter 2, the situation of the protection of the taxpayers'rights of our country is commented. Firstly, the historical development of the protection of the taxpayers'rights of our country is concluded, which is divided into the indifferent phase of the taxpaying obligations, the developing phase of the taxpaying obligations, the developing phase of the taxpayers'rights and the perfecting phase of the taxpayers'rights in order to know the general discipline of the occurrence and development of the taxpayers'rights of our country. Secondly, a comprehensive analysis is given to the present situation of the protection of the taxpayers'rights of our country. In the new Law on the Collection and Management of Taxation, the protection of the taxpayers'legitimate rights and benefits and the rights enjoyed in accordance with the law are added and the standardization of and restriction on the administrative actions of the taxation agency are strengthened in the perspective of the unity of the taxpayers'rights and obligations, which brings about the better protection of the taxpayers'legitimate rights and benefits. When the development and improvement are approved, the analysis of the disadvantages is emphasized. There is much space for improving the protection of the taxpayers'rights of our country. Not only the disadvantages exist in the taxpayers'rights and the social awareness of the taxpayers'rights has not been truly formed but also the defects exist in the legislative, administrative and judicial protection of the taxpayers'rights, which influence the realization of the taxpayers'rights to the different extents. Finally, the causes for the faults of the protection of the taxpayers'rights of our country are explored. In the paper, started from the five aspects of traditional culture, ideas and concepts, traditional taxation theory and the legal system of taxation as well as tax collection practice, the causes for thedefects of the protection of the taxpayers'rights of our country are thoroughly dealt with. In Chapter 3, the comparative research on the protection of the taxpayers'rights is made. Starting from the exploration of the situations of the protection of the taxpayers'rights in the US, Japan, UK and Canada, the experiences of the protection of the taxpayers'rights of the developed countries are known. In these countries, not only the taxpayers'rights are expressly stipulated in the laws or the relevant documents but also it is attached great importance that the actual measures should be taken to represent the explicit taxpayers'rights in the treatment of the affairs related to taxes, with the taxpayers'rights truly realized. Based on the above, in the paper, with the use of the research methods of the theory of the comparative tax law and the use of the practice of the protection of the taxpayers'rights of the foreign developed countries for reference, the situations of the protection of the taxpayers'rights at home and abroad are compared in the four aspects of legislative, judicial and administrative protection as well as self-protection. It is found that there exist gaps between the range of the taxpayers'rights stipulated or the protection of the taxpayers'rights of our country and of the developed countries. In Chapter 4, the protective improvement of the taxpayers'rights of our country is dealt with. It is thought that the realistic problem of the protection of the taxpayers'rights of our country is how to further improve the protection. Firstly, the system of the taxpayers'rights of our country should be improved. Attention should be paid to prevent the four mistaken concepts, the degree and the range in which the taxpayers'rights exist or are enjoyed should be made clear in the level of operation, the rights and benefits of both the taxpayers and the tax collectors should be balanced, the right to learn the truth and the right to keep the taxation secret should be improved and the right to speak about the tax revenue legislation and the right to supervise the use of taxation should be added in addition that the right for rational treatment and the right to plan and prepare for the taxation should be required. In the meanwhile, some assumptions of further improving the protection of the taxpayers'rights of our country are presented. The experiences of theprotection of the taxpayers'rights of the foreign countries should be used for reference and the protective mechanism of taking the legislative, administrative and judicial protection as the main measures and the supervisory protection and self-protection as the supplements should be established. When the legislative protection is enhanced, the taxation agency should be urged to make the active administrative protection in the administrative level and the supervision of the legislative and administrative protection should be strengthened in the judicial level. The concrete measures are made in the following five aspects. The first is the legislative protection. The provisions of the articles related to taxes in the constitution should be improved, the Fundamental Law on Taxation and the relevant laws as well as the legal framework of the protection of rights should be established. The legislative work of the tax law should be further perfected and the legal levels of the tax law should be improved. The second is the judicial protection. The taxpayers'lawsuit should be conditionally opened to the public. The taxpayers can institute a suit for exercising the right to management the taxation and the right to use the taxation, and the design of the system should be made in law and established in the current administrative lawsuit framework in accordance with the constitution and with the relevant judicial explanations as the supplements. The third is the administrative protection. The ideas of execution of law should be changed, the actions of execution of law should be standardized and the investigation of responsibilities should be made. The taxpaying service system should be established, the Taxpaying Service Methods should be set up, the rights should be entitled to the taxpayers by the administrative means and the taxpayers'obligations in law should be refined and enriched in addition that the problems of the concrete means for exercising the taxpayers'rights. The fourth is the supervisory protection. It is strengthened that the taxation and the use of taxes should be known to the public, the supervision of the collection and use of taxes should be enhanced and it is assured that the taxpayers'rights should be realized. The fifth is the self-protection. The awareness of safeguarding the rights should be strengthened, the self-protection organizations should be built and the protection of the media organizations should be enhanced.