On Levying Inheritance Tax In China

Revenue is a major means which government participates in social redistribution, the state can improve the tax system, and carry out "secondary distribution" on wealth of society by using tax leverage, to promote the relative justice of social distribution. As early as the report to the 15th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the central authorities made it clear: "We shall regulate the excessively high incomes, improve the individual income tax system, introduce such new taxes as inheritance tax." As a specific tax, The levy of inheritance tax or not once again become the focus of attention.Firstly, the literature research methods is adopted in these paper, in reference to the relevant literature, the basic concepts, features and functions of inheritance tax are preliminary studied, the course of development of inheritance tax in the word and in China is reviewed, and the theoretical basis for inheritance taxation and domestic research about the introduce of inheritance tax are briefly introduced. Secondly, this paper has a discussion on the practical significance of introducing inheritance tax in China lies in the adjusting social distribution and shorting the gap between the rich and the poor, and China has the economic base and social base which is favorable to introduce inheritance tax, such as the emergence of the wealthy class, the increasing in residents' income etc, at the same time this paper analyses the technical difficulties and social difficulties which we introduce inheritance tax will facing. Thirdly, this paper adopt a comparative study method, and take introduction about foreign system of inheritance tax, introduce the inheritance tax system of the developed country such as the United States, Britain, Japan etc and that of the developing country such as South Korea, Singapore etc, by comparing the history and institutional characteristics of inheritance tax system between different countries, we attempt to draw some useful lessons for levying inheritance tax. Finally, by drawing on the successful experience of foreign inheritance tax system and combining with China's national conditions, especially the condition of China's tax system, we start a detailed discussion on the design of China's inheritance tax system, and think that the pattern of china's inheritance tax can put general inheritance tax system into practice and the imposition of gift tax should be merged into the personal income tax, at the same time, the elements of the china's inheritance tax, revenue management and the related measures are discussed.Nowadays, China is facing social justice issues, in this background, the preliminary discussion in this paper on China's inheritance tax issues, not only has practical significance, but also provides a new theoretical perspective and methods to how we use the tax means to promote social justice.