A Study On The Resource Tax Reform For Optimizing Resource Product Price

Years of economic reform, has broken through numerous institutional dilemmas, but also left some areas not yet be touched; Continuous rapid development, has brought great achievements in the economic construction, and simultaneously made the bottleneck effect caused by resource constraints more and more rigid. Unscientific mechanism of setting the resource prices and unreasonable price relations of resource products, account for the current indiscriminate deforestation, excessive use, wanton destruction of resource and energy, and are also the institutional barriers to the change of economic developing mode. To make the price of resource products, such as coal, oil, gas, water, minerals, reasonable is an urgent and difficult contemporary issue, and also the focus of this study. This article focuses on the regulatory function of fiscal policy, and employs the resource tax reform as a useful approach to clarify the relation of tax and fees in the field of natural resources and optimize the resource product prices through resource tax reform.With respect to the research methods, this article avoids the single normative analysis that many domestic scholars usually use to study the defects of the existing resource tax and then simply propose suggestions. This research combines theory and policy practice, integrates normative analysis and empirical study, and links horizontal contrast and longitudinal comparison together. This helps to improve the accuracy of research, and also enhance the scientific reliability and executive ability of policy recommendations given below. For the standpoint, this paper is not confined to the conventional way that the effect of tax is studied just bases on the tax research system itself, but combines resource tax reform and price optimization of resource products together. This research not only studies the direct role that resource tax plays in regulating, but also the indirect transmission effect of resource product prices. In addition, the article positions resource tax reform to the height of improving Tax Distribution and constructing Public Finance Framework, which, in turn, helps to achieve the coordination of regional economic, the equalization of fiscal, and the equalization of basic public services.Overall, this article contains three parts:the necessity of resource tax reform, the feasibility of resource tax reform, and the corresponding proposals of resource tax reform. The discussion is carried out logically and coherently.Considering the current severe situation of the resource and environment, on the basis of reviewing the existing research both home and abroad, chapter 2 of the article analyzes the theory of resource tax comprehensively. From the perspective of Rent, Externality, Theory of Value, Inter-temporal Substitution, Taxation Optimization, etc, it clarifies the aims and orientations of resource tax reform theoretically. Then, based on the practice, chapter 3 studies the current resource tax system both home and abroad. By comparing the aims of taxation, the scope of charges, the tax basis, and impose types between home and abroad, it shows that our current resource tax system is unscientific, unreasonable and certainly imperfect. So, it's high time to reform the resource taxation.Resource tax affects a broad range of fields. There are many factors that restrict the resource tax reform. People feel uneasy that the reform could influence the economy, increase CPI, and impose an additional burden on residents, etc. then, to what extent would the resource tax reform could influence the CPI, the burden of household consumption, the energy consumption, and the economic growth? What is the bearing capacity of our society on resource tax reform? Chapter 4 of this article has studied the problems above through empirical analysis. Based on the correlation and regression results of the effects of resource product prices in Hangzhou and Chongqing, we find that, because of the market competition, the limits of the tax burden shift, the substitution of production and consumption, the pressure of the rise in resource product prices on CPI, household consumption, or economic growth may be lower than what people used to expect. As long as controlling the reform to some extent, the pressure of resource tax reform on residents living and economic development can be endured. From this perspective, the current resource tax reform is feasible.In the part of the policy recommendations, it not only quantifies the reform range mentioned above, but also programs the new round of resource tax reform deeply. The overall idea is to standardize and merger the tax and fees in the field of natural resources. Generally, it is designed to forward and then enhance the tax burden, so as to change the distortion of low price of the raw materials, optimize the prices of resource products, and simultaneously, compress the unreasonable profits in this field. Specifically, it includes claiming the purpose and principle of resource tax, clarifying the relation of tax and fees in the field of mineral resources, clearly defining the theoretical basis, function, application, etc, of taxation and fees. It proposes to mature the mining markets, to reflect the differential rent of mineral in mining royalties and the absolute rent in mineral resources compensation. Simultaneously, this article recommends enhancing the legislative level of resource tax, reforming the tax factor, improving the supporting system. We need gradually transform the value-added tax, which is neutral and used as general revenues finance, to resource tax, which has strong regulatory function and is more specialized in usage, so as to optimize our tax system.