On Tax Constitutionalism In China

Tax is a legal invasion of taxpayers'rights and benefits which comes from our country. And tax is the major economic source of national fiscal revenue, it sustains the political, economic, social development of a country. In the same time, it is an important mean of national macro-control and keeping our society stable and equal. The exercise of the national levying power makes so many functions of the tax in good order. But in the practical area of tax, despite all our efforts, we can't prohibit the abuse of the power to tax. For such an invasive power in nature which involves people's vital benefits, our constitution, as the fundamental law of a country, doesn't regulate the power, the inexistence of tax constitutionalism leads to many serious phenomenons. For example, the system of tax law in our country is not complete, as well as the right of legislation in taxation is managed by administrative power and mainly concentrates in the central, the taxpayers'tax burden is unfair and unreasonable.In view of the absence of the provisions of our Constitution, as well as the chaos in the fields of tax legislation and enforcement, this article thinks that it is very necessary to regulate our tax powers by tax constitutionalism because of the inspiration of the Western tax constitutional ideas. While the tax legislative power is the most important power in the national tax-powers system, so this article puts the emphasis of tax constitutionalism on the legislative power in tax laws, and analyzes the construction of the principle of tax legislation and the principle of tax equity in our country.The purpose of the principle of legality is controlling the power to tax of the State in form. The principle plays an important guiding role in the cross-arrangement of tax legislative power. With the development of economy and society and the continuous expansion of executive power, although the principle of legality is no longer confined to the initial reservations about the law in the strict sense, but it still retains the principle of law-oriented, that is the regulation about the tax legislative power in the landscape orientation. The vertical regulation is also necessary from the view of national structure, because it relates to the relationship between central and local governments. So we should put the emphasis on the central government and give a certain degree of local legislative power when we allocate the tax legislative power between the central and local. And the local government will have sufficient financial resources to support the development of economy. As for the principle of tax fairness, which is a controlling measure about the power to tax in substance, the foundation of the principle is the economic theory about fair and the spirit of substancial constitutionalism. This principle requires that legislators should not only measure the different affordability of taxpayers, but also make the arrangement of powers to tax and the legal relationship of taxation fair and equal. Of course, there are some limitations about the principle of tax equality, so we should obey the principle of legality strictly when we make use of this principle.In the process of building a socialist country ruled by law and a constitutional government, we should insist on tax constitutionalism when we carry out the tax reformation. We should make the legal principle of taxation and the principle of tax equality clear in the Constitution, and improve the system of tax law in accordance with the two basic principles, and clean up the large number of existing tax laws and regulations. Only in this way, we can make the national levying power legal, and prevent the misuse of the power to tax. And we can protect the legitimate rights and interests of citizens, achieve self-sufficiency and well-being of the people, achieve the prosperity of the nation.